Hamilton axes run at prominent US cultural centre after Trump takeover
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The third engagement of Hamilton at the Kennedy Center, originally scheduled for March 3 to April 26, 2026, is now cancelled.
PHOTO: SARA KRULWICH/NYTIMES
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WASHINGTON – The smash hit musical Hamilton has cancelled a planned run at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, the play’s producer said on March 5, as he accused United States President Donald Trump of destroying the political neutrality of the premier cultural venue in Washington since taking over as its chairman.
The cancellation was a sharply worded rebuke to Mr Trump’s takeover, part of his blitz of policy changes that are upending the US as he attacks people, causes and policies that he describes as being too liberal.
In a statement on social media, Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller said the stately white marble complex overlooking the Potomac River in the US capital was founded as a place where Americans of all political persuasions could come together to enjoy the arts.
“However, in recent weeks, we have sadly seen decades of Kennedy Center neutrality be destroyed,” Mr Seller wrote.
“The recent purge by the Trump administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national cultural treasure represents.”
The third engagement of Hamilton at the Kennedy Center, originally scheduled for March 3 to April 26, 2026, is now cancelled.
The popular rap musical, about the birth of the US and its first treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton, was to have been performed as part of celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence.
The high-profile cancellation is the latest in a series of such exits since Mr Trump took over as Kennedy Center chairman in February, ousting Democrats from the centre’s board and replacing long-serving president Deborah Rutter.
The new board is packed with Trump loyalists and the new president is Mr Richard Grenell, the outspoken ambassador to Germany during Mr Trump’s first term in office who now serves as his special envoy.
“We took over the Kennedy Center. We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things,” Mr Trump told reporters in the Oval Office in February, The Washington Post reported.
“I’m going to be chairman, and we’re going to make sure that it’s good and it’s not going to be woke.”
A handful of artistes have cancelled plans to perform at the centre since Mr Trump’s takeover, including American musician Rhiannon Giddens and actress Issa Rae.
“This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” said the creator of Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda, in a joint New York Times interview with Mr Seller on March 5.
“The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center.”
In a statement on X, Mr Grenell called the cancellation “a publicity stunt that will backfire”.
He wrote: “The arts are for everyone – not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with.” AFP
