The Washington, D.C., arts community is split between defiant protest and quiet resignation since President Donald Trump took control of one of its national treasures, the Kennedy Center.
“It’s a hostile takeover,” said Tara Hoot, a drag queen who has performed at the Center and took part in protests this month. “I find it incredibly upsetting that a sitting president uses a marginalized group — the LGBTQ population — to attack the Kennedy Center and to attack the arts and how we tell our stories,” referring to Trump targeting drag shows at the center.
Trump appointed himself as chair of the Kennedy Center on Feb. 12 and promptly replaced part of the board with loyalists. He ousted David Rubenstein, the previous chair and with $111 million in donations the largest donor in the Kennedy Center’s history. He preemptively fired Deborah Rutter as president, replacing her with Republican operative Richard Grenell as interim president. Trump vowed to “Make the arts great again” by removing “woke, terrible” performances from the center.
Now the D.C. arts community is figuring out how to respond to a shorter leash from the federal government, while harboring suspicions about the president’s agenda.
Some fear an increase in censorship, particularly in productions that concern topics the Trump administration has attacked.
Several productions with LGBTQ+ themes have been canceled at the Kennedy Center in recent weeks, including the children’s musical “Finn” — a decision the theater union Actors Equity called “appalling” — and the Gay Men’s Chorus performance with the National Symphony Orchestra. Manhattan Theatre Club announced that its Broadway transfer run of “Eureka Day,” a comedy about left-leaning parents whose vaccine hesitancy leads to a mumps outbreak, was also canceled.
A spokesperson said the “Finn” and Gay Men’s Chorus productions were canceled prior to the leadership change, citing financial strains and scheduling issues.
Meanwhile, concerned artists continue to cancel appearances at the center, the latest being multi-disciplinary musician Rhiannon Giddens who wrote on social media Tuesday: “I cannot in good conscience play at The Kennedy Center with the change in programming direction forced on the institution by this new board.”
Many members of the D.C. arts community see Trump’s mandates as antithetical to their mission.
“Taking diversity and inclusion out of art, that doesn’t seem possible,” Amy Austin, president and CEO of Theatre Washington, told TheWrap. “So I’m just not sure where this is going to lead.”
“The arts are a place that brings people together, rather than looking at how they’re different,” she said. “The Kennedy Center board has been a reflection of that, that the arts are a place where people could come together, experience emotion, empathy and be in the same room together.”
Still, many foundations and artists are hesitant to publicly voice their disapproval because they receive public arts grants and federal funding, according to a well-connected arts administrator in the D.C. area. This person spoke under condition of anonymity for fear of being targeted.
On the federal level, compliance requirements for National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) grants is a leading concern. In keeping with the president’s executive orders, the NEA’s new grant guidelines mandate that grantees must certify they are not operating programs that promote diversity, equity and inclusion policies.
This means that organizations that already receive federal funding may lose it if they have policies that conflict with Trump’s executive orders, according to Roger Colinvaux, a law professor at The Catholic University of America who specializes in nonprofit organizations and philanthropy. The federal government may also stop existing funding if it sees uses like individual programming go to initiatives it doesn’t want to support, like diversity or inclusion, Colinvaux said. However, it can’t affect non-profit status like 501(c)3, he said.
The D.C.-area arts administrator said his organization is no longer able to apply for any new federal grants because of the new policies, but does not plan to change its mission to comply with them. It will instead work toward diversifying funding sources.
Small arts organizations in particular are vulnerable to the pressure from the Trump administration, he said, due to their reliance on federal grants.
In the 2024 fiscal year, the Kennedy Center requested $48 million in federal funding, including $29.4 million for operations and maintenance and $18.7 million for capital repair and restoration, according to its 2024 budget justification to Congress.
As of 2023, the most recent year for which the Kennedy Center’s tax records are available, donor contributions accounted for $141 million, or 49.2% of the center’s total revenue, and program services brought in $130 million, or 45.4%. It is unclear whether Trump would assume any part of the fundraising role typically embraced by the center’s chairman.
Donors who have gifted $1 million or more annually to the Kennedy Center include Boeing, Capital One, Paramount, former chairman Rubenstein and the U.S. Department of Education, among others.
Qommittee, an LGBTQ advocacy group, started a petition calling on Kennedy Center donors to suspend funding until “artistic independence is restored” and to redirect funds to “banned or censored” artists and art forms.
“Money talks,” the petition reads. “When donors fund censorship, they don’t just harm one institution — they tell marginalized communities their stories don’t deserve to be told. Because regardless of who you are, America is a place of free expression. No exceptions.”