Broadway Shockers 2025: The Trump-Kennedy Center

As 2025 draws to a close, TheaterMania looks back on some of the most surprising stories of the year.

“I’ll tell you what, the Trump Kennedy Center … I mean, I’m sorry. Well, this is terribly embarrassing,” the rarely embarrassed President pretended to slip during his opening remarks at this year’s Kennedy Center Honors ceremony, which was held at the capital’s great arts palace on December 7 (the ceremony will be broadcast tomorrow night on CBS).

It was a forced gaffe, the kind that communicates to the audience that Donald Trump, a man who has never been shy about plastering his name on buildings, is only joking about renaming the Kennedy Center for himself…for now.

But in 2025, jokes transform into reality in the blink of an eye. On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Karolin Leavitt announced that the board of trustees had voted unanimously to rename the arts venue “The Trump-Kennedy Center” in honor of his contributions to the organization.

President Trump has lavished special attention on the Kennedy Center in his second term. Within weeks of his inauguration, he was elected chairman of the board for the federally sponsored performing arts venue. This was after he purged the board of Biden nominees, replacing him with his own slate of loyalists, hence the unanimous vote prompted by a monologue joke (you can read more about the 14 Trump-appointed trustees here). Multiple scheduled acts were subsequently removed from the calendar, presumably for their proximity to wokeness. “NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA,” the President wrote on Truth Social (the caps are his). Other shows, like the national tour of Hamilton, canceled their runs voluntarily.

In August the president announced this year’s Kennedy Center honorees, a designation that is the closest thing this country has to knighthood for artists and entertainers. He also revealed that he would personally host this year’s televised ceremony, a first for a sitting president. It seems like even the commander-in-chief is prone to look wistfully back on his old career and muse, what if?

The president is obviously bothered by liberal bias in the arts, especially in those organizations receiving tax dollars. He would like America’s stages to feature more MAGA-friendly fare, starting with the stages over which he exerts the most direct control. Whether you agree with that project or not, it’s worth assessing how successful he has been.

This year’s list of Kennedy Center honorees offers a clue. On December 7, the president personally honored country music star George Strait, Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone (Rocky), disco diva Gloria Gaynor, rock band Kiss, and Broadway star Michael Crawford. There’s a faint aroma of desperation around this group. Michael Crawford is English and last appeared on Broadway in 2002’s Dance of the Vampires. Quickly, can you name a Gloria Gaynor song that is not “I Will Survive”? These people were chosen for their name recognition, but also carefully vetted for their propensity to actually show up and receive an award from Donald Trump when not every cultural luminary would.

As with his quest to reshape the federal bureaucracy, Donald Trump faces a human resources problem. There simply aren’t enough Trump-voting Broadway divas or MAHA-friendly modern dancers to instantly forge an alternate rightwing arts and culture scene that could in any significant way compete with (much less supplant) the liberal-skewing one that presently exists.

I also doubt there is a huge audience waiting in the wings to support a MAGAfied performing arts scene. After reviewing internal data, The New Yorker reported depressed ticket sales for some of the Center’s biggest events, including the recent revival of The Sound of Music and a December 17^th Christmas concert that executive director Richard Grenell has personally promoted as “a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ.” According to the magazine, that event had sold 300 of 2,300 tickets with just nine days to go before showtime.

And while the Kennedy Center struggles to move tickets, congressional Democrats are beginning to question some of Grenell’s more controversial rental agreements. Earlier this month, FIFA held its World Cup draw at the Center and used the opportunity to present President Trump with its newly invented FIFA Peace Prize. While it would normally cost around $5 million to rent out the entire Kennedy Center, FIFA got the place free of charge, according to The Washington Post.

In August, Trump and Grenell discussed renovation plans for the Kennedy Center, having secured $257 million in congressional funding. All aesthetic choices will be subject to the president’s tastes, which are already asserting themselves: The Honors medallions, historically suspended around the neck by a rainbow ribbon, this year featured a more heterosexual navy blue.

The effort to use federal power to seed a MAGA high culture, shifting both performers and audiences to the right, will be the work of generations rather than a four-year term. But this period represents an opportunity for performers who have been scorned by the Broadway monoculture (canceled theater actor Laura Osnes performed for Michael Crawford at the Kennedy Center Honors). For the next three years, they will be more than welcome at DC’s arts acropolis as the vanguard of a MAGA cultural revolution, the beginning of which you can watch from the comfort of your living room, hosted by the president of the United States.