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Wednesday, September 16, 2026
Kennedy Center board votes to close over Trump naming dispute and financial trouble
PBS News: The Trump-aligned Kennedy Center board voted on Tuesday to close most of the iconic performing arts venue just hours after a federal judge blocked the institution from returning President Donald Trump's name to the building.
The Kennedy Center is a massively significant performing arts venue. It’s huge, and it’s beautiful, and it’s incredibly important to DC culture and its artistic communities. It has several different theatrical performance halls, a concert hall, and frequently holds movie screenings and outdoor events for the community as a whole. It’s tragic that it now faces destruction, and it’s shameful that the closure comes as a result of the president's egotistical and petty abuse of power. The president is not a patron of the arts, but he wanted to put his name on the Kennedy Center in a bid to remake DC in his own image; when that was blocked by a federal judge (multiple times) he resorted to withholding funding for much-needed repairs to the building, resulting in the possibility of a permanent closure. This is something that Congress, and people as a whole, need to take a stand against. Write to your representatives and donate to the Center, especially if you live in the DMV (or if you value the arts!)
This article is very disappointing news. The Kennedy Center is a cornerstone of the American theatre industry and must be protected. I really want to know why Congress has not had a larger role to play in this story. The executive branch and the judicial branch have both engaged in this conflict, while the only mention of Congress’s involvement is the fact that the courts said only Congress can approve adding President Trump’s name to the center. If it’s Congress’s right to protect the center from adding Trump’s name, which is what’s currently stopping funding reaching the center, shouldn’t they also be the ones to organize federal funding for the center? The legislative branch has always had the responsibility of distributing funding to organizations, not the executive branch. President Trump’s funding should not be the deciding factor in this case. I also believe that as a theatre community we need to stand up and protect the Kennedy center. After reading so many articles this week alone about the uncertain future of the center, I am going to deliberately seek out fundraising initiatives to help support the center from demolition.
This is incredibly disheartening news to get. As someone who lived near DC, the Kennedy Center was a vibrant hub of arts, and I cherish all the shows I got to see there. Over the past year, we have watched the current administration defile the Kennedy Center in various ways. Now it has to close, and DC becomes less bright because of that. I also mourn the Center's closing because of all the people who no longer have a job. I have friends who worked there, and now they have to find a way to make ends meet. I am grateful to be seeing that theaters around DC are doing various forms of fundraising to help support the people that have been impacted by the closure. I hope that in light of this situation, the DMV theater scene will rally together to support the arts and the people who make the art.
I think this is truly the worst outcome this situation could have ended in. Although it is wrong for Trump to want to put his name on every building he sees, the worst is that the arts have now lost a space for performance and the sharing of culture. The theater industry is almost always struggling to stay afloat but we do whatever is necessary to keep sharing stories and spreading cultural knowledge to the public through art. A common saying heard in our industry is that we are playing pretend with other peoples money and that is definitely not untrue. We get funding to tell stories that create worlds unlike our own so if we need to put someone's name all over a building to get the opportunity to tell those stories then so be it. In the face of danger we can't back down because without a space to share peoples voices that theatrical industry would slowly fizzle out of existence.
4 comments:
The Kennedy Center is a massively significant performing arts venue. It’s huge, and it’s beautiful, and it’s incredibly important to DC culture and its artistic communities. It has several different theatrical performance halls, a concert hall, and frequently holds movie screenings and outdoor events for the community as a whole. It’s tragic that it now faces destruction, and it’s shameful that the closure comes as a result of the president's egotistical and petty abuse of power. The president is not a patron of the arts, but he wanted to put his name on the Kennedy Center in a bid to remake DC in his own image; when that was blocked by a federal judge (multiple times) he resorted to withholding funding for much-needed repairs to the building, resulting in the possibility of a permanent closure. This is something that Congress, and people as a whole, need to take a stand against. Write to your representatives and donate to the Center, especially if you live in the DMV (or if you value the arts!)
This article is very disappointing news. The Kennedy Center is a cornerstone of the American theatre industry and must be protected. I really want to know why Congress has not had a larger role to play in this story. The executive branch and the judicial branch have both engaged in this conflict, while the only mention of Congress’s involvement is the fact that the courts said only Congress can approve adding President Trump’s name to the center. If it’s Congress’s right to protect the center from adding Trump’s name, which is what’s currently stopping funding reaching the center, shouldn’t they also be the ones to organize federal funding for the center? The legislative branch has always had the responsibility of distributing funding to organizations, not the executive branch. President Trump’s funding should not be the deciding factor in this case. I also believe that as a theatre community we need to stand up and protect the Kennedy center. After reading so many articles this week alone about the uncertain future of the center, I am going to deliberately seek out fundraising initiatives to help support the center from demolition.
This is incredibly disheartening news to get. As someone who lived near DC, the Kennedy Center was a vibrant hub of arts, and I cherish all the shows I got to see there. Over the past year, we have watched the current administration defile the Kennedy Center in various ways. Now it has to close, and DC becomes less bright because of that. I also mourn the Center's closing because of all the people who no longer have a job. I have friends who worked there, and now they have to find a way to make ends meet. I am grateful to be seeing that theaters around DC are doing various forms of fundraising to help support the people that have been impacted by the closure. I hope that in light of this situation, the DMV theater scene will rally together to support the arts and the people who make the art.
I think this is truly the worst outcome this situation could have ended in. Although it is wrong for Trump to want to put his name on every building he sees, the worst is that the arts have now lost a space for performance and the sharing of culture. The theater industry is almost always struggling to stay afloat but we do whatever is necessary to keep sharing stories and spreading cultural knowledge to the public through art. A common saying heard in our industry is that we are playing pretend with other peoples money and that is definitely not untrue. We get funding to tell stories that create worlds unlike our own so if we need to put someone's name all over a building to get the opportunity to tell those stories then so be it. In the face of danger we can't back down because without a space to share peoples voices that theatrical industry would slowly fizzle out of existence.
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