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Thursday, February 19, 2026
Actors' Equity, IATSE, Other Entertainment Unions Condemn Kennedy Center Closure
Playbill: Following President Trump's announcement that the Kennedy Center would be the closed for two years beginning July 4 for renovations, a number of entities have roundly condemned the move from Congressional Senators to, now, a host of entertainment unions and workers.
5 comments:
Concorde77
said...
I can’t really say this is a surprise given the current state of the Kennedy Center. IATSE, Actors’ Equity, and the musicians’ unions condemning the closure quite honestly was expected. The Kennedy Center’s rapid decline really has hit DC theatre hard, and really has hit American theatre hard. The closure has really kind of puzzled me the more I’ve thought about it though, as I cannot really understand the decisionmaking that went into the shutdown. Even if attendance was low, it seems like Trump would want to make it seem successful by keeping it open longer, rather than admitting to defeat by closing it and therefore surrendering. Ideally, this is just a closure rather than a refurbishment, as I really hope the distinctive midcentury architecture is able to stay if the Kennedy Center is revived under a future administration. In the meantime, I hope DC as a city and theatrical region is able to create something that resembles the Kennedy Center in terms of the composition of its artists and designers.
I think this was pretty expected behavior. This screwed over basically everyone but Trump, you’re closing it for two years with 0 income available to the folks that work there hourly, and maybe some full time salary employees, which is just wrong to do in the first place. Not only that, you are cancelling all the shows you’d get your income from, and it being a 2 year closure for “renovations,” they won’t even host small events. I also know for a fact Trump is not going to give the staff any financial assistant during this, no only is it just not the type of person he is, but all the spare money he has to spend is going to ICE operations (which, ew, but not to get political) or to building his new ball room, or other useless expenses like his paycheck from court cases. Overall, this was to be expected and I am surprised it took 3 news comments cycles for this to happen.
This is pretty heartbreaking to hear. After getting into theater throughout high school I was really looking forward to one day possibly taking an opportunity to work at the Kennedy Center. I’ve lived in the DMV area most of my life and was able to attend a performance there before when I was pretty young. I was hoping one day I would be able to return during my time here at CMU over a break to see it once again. It’s such a shame to hear how it’s affecting those who were already employed there. Those are some very talented, hard working people in our industry who were forced out of nowhere. I do hope one day the Kennedy Center will return to the venue it once was with people who really care about the work and performances taking place there, rather than the current board and president thinking only about themselves and their own personal benefit from it.
I wish I could be surprised at yet another clearly selfish act from Trump. In a way I can't see any reason for this closure except for spite. It feels as if Trump feels slighted by the fact that people don't like his hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center and has decided that if he can't take the credit for it's success he must destroy the Kennedy Center as we know it. As some others have said I sincerely hope that this is only a closure and no actual renovations happen but unfortunately I don't think that that's very likely. I think that if Trump really cared about the Theatre industry and wasn't simply trying to clamp down on the Kennedy Center he should have built his own theater with its own goals and design choices rather than changing what already exists. I hope that the unions involved will be able to leverage the existing contracts to give all the artists who are suddenly out a job from this closure time to find a new job.
Trump got embarrassed by the amount of people who canceled after he decided to take over the Kennedy Center so he is throwing a tantrum and closing down the place under the guise of making it better. Artists have said that the Kennedy Center is in good shape and does not need renovations. Once again, we are seeing Trump use his power in whatever way he sees fit. He uses it to throw tantrums over things that he should not have done in the first place. He is using this presidency to make a name for himself and make sure that America remembers him instead of using it to help the American people. Renaming the Kennedy Center and now shutting it down when he did not see the results he wanted is a complete power grab and him trying to prove that he is in control, especially since he did not go through the right channels to do this.
5 comments:
I can’t really say this is a surprise given the current state of the Kennedy Center. IATSE, Actors’ Equity, and the musicians’ unions condemning the closure quite honestly was expected. The Kennedy Center’s rapid decline really has hit DC theatre hard, and really has hit American theatre hard. The closure has really kind of puzzled me the more I’ve thought about it though, as I cannot really understand the decisionmaking that went into the shutdown. Even if attendance was low, it seems like Trump would want to make it seem successful by keeping it open longer, rather than admitting to defeat by closing it and therefore surrendering. Ideally, this is just a closure rather than a refurbishment, as I really hope the distinctive midcentury architecture is able to stay if the Kennedy Center is revived under a future administration. In the meantime, I hope DC as a city and theatrical region is able to create something that resembles the Kennedy Center in terms of the composition of its artists and designers.
I think this was pretty expected behavior. This screwed over basically everyone but Trump, you’re closing it for two years with 0 income available to the folks that work there hourly, and maybe some full time salary employees, which is just wrong to do in the first place. Not only that, you are cancelling all the shows you’d get your income from, and it being a 2 year closure for “renovations,” they won’t even host small events. I also know for a fact Trump is not going to give the staff any financial assistant during this, no only is it just not the type of person he is, but all the spare money he has to spend is going to ICE operations (which, ew, but not to get political) or to building his new ball room, or other useless expenses like his paycheck from court cases. Overall, this was to be expected and I am surprised it took 3 news comments cycles for this to happen.
This is pretty heartbreaking to hear. After getting into theater throughout high school I was really looking forward to one day possibly taking an opportunity to work at the Kennedy Center. I’ve lived in the DMV area most of my life and was able to attend a performance there before when I was pretty young. I was hoping one day I would be able to return during my time here at CMU over a break to see it once again. It’s such a shame to hear how it’s affecting those who were already employed there. Those are some very talented, hard working people in our industry who were forced out of nowhere. I do hope one day the Kennedy Center will return to the venue it once was with people who really care about the work and performances taking place there, rather than the current board and president thinking only about themselves and their own personal benefit from it.
I wish I could be surprised at yet another clearly selfish act from Trump. In a way I can't see any reason for this closure except for spite. It feels as if Trump feels slighted by the fact that people don't like his hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center and has decided that if he can't take the credit for it's success he must destroy the Kennedy Center as we know it. As some others have said I sincerely hope that this is only a closure and no actual renovations happen but unfortunately I don't think that that's very likely. I think that if Trump really cared about the Theatre industry and wasn't simply trying to clamp down on the Kennedy Center he should have built his own theater with its own goals and design choices rather than changing what already exists. I hope that the unions involved will be able to leverage the existing contracts to give all the artists who are suddenly out a job from this closure time to find a new job.
Trump got embarrassed by the amount of people who canceled after he decided to take over the Kennedy Center so he is throwing a tantrum and closing down the place under the guise of making it better. Artists have said that the Kennedy Center is in good shape and does not need renovations. Once again, we are seeing Trump use his power in whatever way he sees fit. He uses it to throw tantrums over things that he should not have done in the first place. He is using this presidency to make a name for himself and make sure that America remembers him instead of using it to help the American people. Renaming the Kennedy Center and now shutting it down when he did not see the results he wanted is a complete power grab and him trying to prove that he is in control, especially since he did not go through the right channels to do this.
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