President Trump announced Sunday that he would shut down the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, which has been battered by cancellations and boycotts, for two years starting this summer. He said that would allow his administration to transform what he called \u201ca tired, broken, and dilapidated Center,\u201d into \u201cthe finest Performing Arts Facility of its kind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mr. Trump\u2019s announcement came after a major backlash by performers, contributors and audience members and amounted to a sudden change in direction for what has been a high visibility initiative of his second term.<\/p>\n
From his first weeks in office, Mr. Trump set out to remake the center, opened as a tribute to John F. Kennedy after his assassination in 1963, in his image. But in the discussions of that remaking, which included talk of renovations, there had been no public discussion of anything as drastic as a full two-year shutdown.<\/p>\n
In recent months, Mr. Trump had attached his name to the center, installed loyalists to run it, including Richard Grenell, the center\u2019s president, and called for changing the programming there to make it more in line with what he said was widespread American tastes and sensibilities: more \u201cLes Miz\u201d and less \u201cHamilton,\u201d<\/a> as he put it on one visit to the center.<\/p>\n The reaction has been harsh and unrelenting. Last week, Philip Glass, the acclaimed American composer, said he was withdrawing<\/a> Symphony No. 15, which had been commissioned by the National Symphony Orchestra in tribute to Abraham Lincoln, that was to be performed there in June. A week earlier, the acclaimed soprano Ren\u00e9e Fleming canceled a performance<\/a>.<\/p>\n The Washington National Opera announced last month<\/a> that it was cutting its ties to the center, and the other classical music anchor there, the National Symphony Orchestra, has been playing to empty seats.<\/p>\n But Mr. Trump, in his social media post, made no mention of the cancellations or the patrons who are now staying home: attendance at the National Symphony Orchestra is down 50 percent over last year. Instead, he presented it as his latest effort to rebuild part of Washington \u2014 following the demolition of the East Wing of the White House and his proposal to build a towering arch<\/a> across from the Washington Monument.<\/p>\n The Kennedy Center underwent a major renovation and expansion in 2019 under Deborah Rutter, the Kennedy Center president who left shortly after Mr. Trump took office. But Mr. Trump had earlier seemed unhappy with that expansion, which cost $250 million,<\/a> saying \u201cthey built these rooms that nobody is going to use.\u201d<\/p>\n The president said that funding had been found for his new project \u2014 but did not say how much it would cost or where the money was coming from. Last year, Mr. Trump secured $257 million from Congress to help with capital repairs on the building, and his allies have credited him with having \u201csaved\u201d the center.<\/p>\n He offered no details of what kind of reconstruction he had in mind, other than to say it would entail \u201cConstruction, Revitalization, and Complete Rebuilding.\u201d Mr. Trump said the changes would have to be approved by the Kennedy Center board \u2014 which he controls \u2014 but made no mention of whether it would need approval by Congress as well.<\/p>\n The center will shut down on July 4, he said Sunday, coinciding with the nation\u2019s celebration of its 250th birthday. He said that a dramatic step was necessary to safeguard one of Washington\u2019s most treasured cultural institutions.<\/p>\n \u201cIn other words, if we don\u2019t close, the quality of Construction will not be nearly as good, and the time to completion, because of interruptions with Audiences from the many Events using the Facility, will be much longer,\u201d he wrote on Truth Social<\/a>. \u201cThe temporary closure will produce a much faster and higher quality result!\u201d<\/p>\n The decision was a dramatic intervention for a performing arts institution that, in recent years, has put on more than 2,000 performances and events annually.<\/p>\n The staff at the Kennedy Center has undergone its own transformation over the past year as dozens of employees, many with decades of experience in arts programming, have been fired or quit. On Sunday, some staff members and one Kennedy board member said they had learned the news through the president\u2019s announcement. Shortly after, Mr. Grenell wrote in a staff-wide email that \u201cwe recognize this creates many questions as we plan to temporarily close most of our operations.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe will have more information about staffing and operational changes in the coming days,\u201d the email said.<\/p>\n White House officials declined to address questions about when the president had reached his shutdown decision or whether he intended to seek Congressional approval for the project.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump\u2019s takeover of the center has been met with objections from some Democrats in Congress who have challenged his legal right to rename the center.<\/p>\n On Sunday, Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine, the top Democrat on the House subcommittee that oversees funding for the Kennedy Center\u2019s building, questioned the motivation for the planned closure in a video posted to social media<\/a>, suggesting that the president was just \u201ccovering up the financial disaster he\u2019s created there.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThis man has destroyed the place,\u201d she said in the video. \u201cHe\u2019s run it into the ground financially; he\u2019s made it a place where performers don\u2019t want to perform, and individuals don\u2019t want to attend performances.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview, she said her staff was seeking a legal opinion on whether the president could make a decision to shutter the venue without the involvement of Congress.<\/p>\n Representative Joyce Beatty, a Democrat from Ohio and an ex officio member of the Kennedy Center\u2019s board, said Mr. Trump had \u201cacted with total disregard for Congress,\u201d which she said should have been consulted.<\/p>\n \u201cCountless employees, artists, and others likely have existing contracts and agreements with the Center,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat happens to them? Has Trump or his handpicked Board given any consideration to their livelihoods or futures? This is exactly why congressional oversight is so important.\u201d<\/p>\n In a post to X<\/a> on Sunday, Mr. Grenell wrote that the center \u201cdesperately needs this renovation,\u201d and that the closure would enable its staff to \u201cbetter invest our resources, think bigger and make the historic renovations more comprehensive.\u201d<\/p>\n Mr. Trump, who has described his renovation projects in Washington during his second term as a \u201crelaxing\u201d part of his job, has already involved himself in the minutiae of the center\u2019s building. He ordered federal workers to paint the building\u2019s gold columns white, and he commented on its chillers and boilers.<\/p>\n Renovation plans have been said to include redoing the seats in the opera house and replacing 30-year-old pieces of rigging equipment backstage, but a two-year shutdown suggests far more ambitious plans.<\/p>\n There was no immediate word where the National Symphony Orchestra, which has vowed to keep playing at the center in the midst of the exodus, would perform over those two years. In a typical year, the orchestra plays as many as 150 performances at the Kennedy Center.<\/p>\n The Washington National Opera has already begun to find other halls. \u201cThe W.N.O. is grateful to the performance venues who have committed to partnering with us in the coming seasons,\u201d said Francesca Zambello, the artistic director of the opera. The organization has already scheduled one opera for Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University.<\/p>\n Mr. Trump made his announcement on what has always been a busy night for American culture and music: the Grammy Awards are taking place<\/a> in Los Angeles. And it came two days after he used the center as a venue for thepremiere<\/a> of a documentary about his wife, \u201cMelania.\u201d<\/p>\n Shawn McCreesh contributed reporting.<\/p>\n