Coming soon to Trump’s Kennedy Center: A celebration of Christ

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump took control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington only last week. But his administration is already making plans for reshaping the institution’s programming.

Chief among them: a celebration of Christ planned for December.

Mr Richard Grenell, whom Mr Trump named as the Kennedy Center’s new president, told a conservative gathering on Feb 21 that the “big change” at the centre would be that “we are doing a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas”.

“How crazy is it to think that we’re going to celebrate Christ at Christmas with a big traditional production, to celebrate what we are all celebrating in the world during Christmastime, which is the birth of Christ?” Mr Grenell said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland.

The Kennedy Center has long held Christmas-themed events.

In December, the centre hosted “A Candlelight Christmas” by the Washington Chorus; “A Family Christmas” by the Choral Arts Society of Washington; and “Go Tell It”, a Christmas celebration by the Alfred Street Baptist Church, a prominent Black church in Virginia.

On Feb 16, the church said it would cancel its Christmas concert there because the Kennedy Center’s new leaders stood in opposition to the “longstanding tradition of honouring artistic expression across all backgrounds”.

Mr Grenell’s comments were his first public remarks in which he discussed his plans as the Kennedy Center’s new leader. His appointment was part of a series of extraordinary actions Mr Trump took to solidify control over the Kennedy Center, which has been a bipartisan institution throughout its 54-year history.

Mr Trump, who stayed away from the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term after some of the artists being honoured criticised him, stunned the cultural world when he decided to purge the centre’s board of all Biden appointees and install himself as chair, ousting financier David M. Rubenstein, the centre’s largest donor.

The new board fired Ms Deborah F. Rutter, the centre’s president for more than a decade, and the post was given to Mr Grenell, a Trump loyalist who was ambassador to Germany during the president’s first term.

Mr Grenell took aim at Ms Rutter on Feb 21, suggesting that she was paid too much, and that she had left the centre in poor financial health.

Ms Rutter’s compensation in the fiscal year ending in September 2023 was about US$1.4 million (S$1.9 million), according to public tax records.

Politico journalist Dasha Burns, who was interviewing Mr Grenell onstage at the conference on Feb 21, asked how much he would get paid in the role.

“Way, way, way less,” he replied.

Ms Rutter, through a spokesperson, declined to comment.

Gay men and Dolly Parton

The Kennedy Center is a public-private partnership that gets only a small portion of its US$268 million budget – about US$43 million, or 16 per cent – from the federal government.

That subsidy is not spent on programming but is earmarked for operations, maintenance and repairs of the property, which is federally owned and is considered a memorial to President John F. Kennedy.

Mr Grenell cited that federal aid when discussing Mr Trump’s plans for the centre.

“If you’re going to take public money, then you get to have public input,” he said.

Mr Grenell also said that contrary to some media reports, the decision to cancel a concert in May featuring the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, D.C., was made before he and Mr Trump took control of the Kennedy Center.

When Ms Burns asked Mr Grenell whether he would still welcome the Gay Men’s Chorus at the centre, he did not respond directly.

“If you’re going to take public money, you have to prove that you actually can bring in revenue,” he said. “We don’t have any money.”

The Manhattan Theater Club, a New York-based nonprofit, announced on Feb 21 that it would not bring “Eureka Day” to the Kennedy Center in March for a planned two-week run “due to financial circumstances”.

The play – a comedy about left-leaning parents whose vaccine hesitancy leads to a mumps outbreak – ended its Broadway run on Feb 16.

Since Mr Trump took over the centre, actress Issa Rae canceled an engagement there, and some prominent artists resigned their positions as advisers, including star soprano Renée Fleming and singer-songwriter Ben Folds.

Mr Grenell maintained that the Kennedy Center would have no trouble attracting big-name artists.

“We already have them,” he said.

Asked why Mr Trump chose him for the job, Mr Grenell described himself as a culture aficionado who appreciates “a whole bunch of different styles of art”.

And when he was asked what he thought the ideal performance at the Kennedy Center would be, he said: “Dolly Parton.”

Ms Parton was honoured at the Kennedy Center in 2006.

Mr Grenell described his vision for the Kennedy Center in familiar terms: “We want to make art great again.” NYTIMES