Employees told me that the new hires “don’t understand the basic vocabulary” of arts administration. They have questions. Things like, what is “capacity”? What is an “arena show”? What is a “backline”? What is “stage left”? What is an “usher”? Perhaps predictably, Trump’s takeover and firing of veteran cultural programmers made the center radioactive to performers. The comedian Issa Rae and the musical “Hamilton” pulled out of their contracts soon after Trump appointed himself chair. Other artists quietly ghosted the arts hub; at least one agreed to perform, but asked not to be named in social-media posts.
The center has weathered months of damaging press—reports of plummeting ticket sales, skittish donors, and aggrieved artists waiting for payment. Even as the organization’s reputation has tanked, Grenell has found people to write big checks. For this year’s Honors, he dramatically raised prices for the choicest seats. In a phone call, Grenell said he also supports “niche programming which is not always able to sell tickets,” so long as it can find a deep-pocketed benefactor. (He asked the Patriots owner Robert Kraft’s foundation to underwrite the center’s production of “Parade,” citing its “uplifting” beauty and warnings against antisemitism.) Yet the center’s president is known to be an unreliable chronicler of its fortunes. For example, Grenell flaunted that “The Sound of Music” sold out on its opening night. According to internal sales figures reviewed by The New Yorker, however, it was at fifty-four-per-cent capacity. In general, one staffer told me, “I’d have better results selling shows in the pandemic with half the people dying.”
Under Grenell’s leadership, the Kennedy Center has appeared to transform into a seat of political and interpersonal backscratching. The new president appointed Elliot Berke, his longtime lawyer, as the organization’s general counsel, and Lisa Dale, a former campaign adviser to Kari Lake (Lake’s husband, Jeff Halperin, has also worked for the center, making social-media videos), to lead the sixteen-person development department, formerly a team of nearly a hundred. The new fund-raising approach is more typical of political campaigns, multiple employees told me—a series of one-and-done, steroidal cash shots, often with the expectation of access in return. Grenell “cares about countries and corporations,” one staffer said. “He doesn’t care about people.”
When Trump appointed Grenell the acting intelligence director during Trump’s first term, Grenell drew criticism for not registering as having advocated on behalf of a foreign power after his public-relations firm, Capitol Media Partners, worked for a foundation funded by autocratic Hungary. (A lawyer for Grenell at the time said he was not required to register.) In October, the Kennedy Center partnered with the Hungarian Embassy on a concert, featuring the violinist Zoltán Mága, that doubled as, in Mága’s words, a celebration “of Hungarian freedom, Christian values, and national pride.” According to an archived version of Grenell’s personal website, his P.R. firm also had clients based in Kazakhstan; Kennedy Center spokesperson Roma Daravi revealed last month that the Kazakh government has pledged a donation to the center.
At the end of November, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, of Rhode Island, announced that the Environment and Public Works Committee would be opening an investigation into Grenell’s leadership. “The Center is being looted to the tune of millions of dollars in foregone revenue, canceled programming, unpaid use of its facilities, and wasteful spending on luxury restaurants and hotels,” Whitehouse wrote. A press release for the investigation called the Kennedy Center “a slush fund and private club for Trump’s friends and political allies.” Grenell disputes these allegations, though it’s undeniable that the arts venue has become overtly MAGA-aligned since he took over. In the past few months, the site has hosted a NewsNation “bipartisan town hall” featuring Chris Cuomo and Tom Homan and a Christian Persecution Summit organized by CPAC, which, according to Whitehouse, paid a sharply reduced rental fee. Documents obtained by Whitehouse suggest that FIFA used the center’s buildings for free, but a spokesperson for Grenell said that the soccer organization donated over two million dollars, in addition to providing five million in “sponsorship opportunities.”
The irony of all of this is that Trump was drawn to the Kennedy Center by its cultural prestige—a resource that his loyalists’ cronyism and self-dealing have grievously depleted. The organization has historically relied on “underplays,” in which artists accept much lower rates than they otherwise would in order to perform at a culturally significant venue. Now that the space’s reputation is tarnished, performing talent has less incentive to settle for those smaller fees. And, for all of the Administration’s insistence that being woke made the Kennedy Center broke, there’s little indication that the traditionalist counterprogramming is bringing in ticket sales. A Noël concert that Grenell ardently touted as early as February—“we are doing a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas,” he said—is scheduled for December 17th. As of December 8th, it had sold just over three hundred tickets, out of around twenty-three hundred.
At this point, we know what Trump wants to do with the Kennedy Center. As a real-estate developer, he wants to renovate it; as a politician, he wants to assimilate it into his movement. But Trump’s investment in the organization feels deeply personal. Each honoree seemed to represent a different aspect of the President’s idealized self. There was Kiss—a group of rebellious rockers from Queens. Strait, who evokes a romantic notion of the sturdy, unpretentious everyman, a guy who knows how to lasso a bull. As for Gaynor, the President spoke fervently about the inspiration to be found in the “three simple words” of her signature song: “I will survive.” And Stallone, Trump said, his voice heavy with feeling, was “the greatest underdog in cinema.”
Most illuminating of all might be Crawford, whom Kelsey Grammer couldn’t even introduce without breaking into a self-deprecating ditty. (“Hello, Michael,” he sang, to the tune of “Hello, Dolly,” his voice tremulous with incomplete commitment to the bit.) The soprano Laura Osnes, who was ostracized by the Broadway community after the New York Post publicized the fact that she hadn’t been vaccinated for COVID, played Christine, the heroine of “Phantom of the Opera.” Osnes teamed up with David Phelps, a Christian recording artist, for the show’s titular anthem. As the number reached its climax, the Phantom delivered his booming command to “sing, my angel of music!” Christine, the glittering captive, strained her voice higher and higher.
For all his Broadway aspirations, Trump, when he took the stage as the host, didn’t sound like someone whose dream was coming true. His manner was perfunctory, a bit bitter. “Many of you are miserable, horrible people,” Trump told the audience, to laughter. Some of the night’s biggest acts, he said later, “probably don’t like me very much.” Technical snafus disturbed the proceedings. A couple of times, the house lights came up before a video was over. At one point, in the middle of a speech, crew members started transporting a piano. ♦
