The atmosphere of the Kennedy Center after Donald Trump added his name to the building is like a “funeral parlor” according to an insider.
The president’s name was added to the building after the Kennedy Center board were dismissed and then replaced by a Trump-friendly team. They announced in December 2025 that the building would be named “The Trump Kennedy Center”, with signage on the outside of the building confirming the change.
But there has been pushback from both productions who have cancelled their shows and audiences who say they refuse to attend events at the venue. A venue insider, speaking to The Guardian‘s Charlotte Higgins, says the atmosphere post-name change is very negative.
They said it was like a “funeral parlor – there’s a deathly pall over the place”. An annual concert which is performed on Martin Luther King Day has been scrapped, while the Washington National Opera confirmed this month they would leave the Kennedy Center. They had used the arts center as their base of performance since 1971, but are now looking for alternative accommodation.
Part of the problem, Higgins suggested, is the new chair of the organization, Richard Grenell. She wrote, “This former ambassador to Germany might have wished for better things; at any rate, entirely inexperienced in the arts, he seems utterly out of his depth. Things have unravelled. Artists have departed the centre in droves. Hamilton pulled out. So have audiences.”
Some audience members made their reason for protest clear, with Washington National Opera director Francesca Zambello sharing some loyal customers had returned shredded brochures to the venue.
Higgins wrote, “Every day, Zambello was receiving messages of protest from formerly loyal members of the audience: shredded season brochures stuffed into an envelope and returned; missives saying, among other things, ‘I’m never setting foot in there until the ‘orange menace’ is gone.’”
Though the Washington National Opera intends to leave the Kennedy Center, it may be some time before they are given the freedom to do so.
Higgins explained, “There may be trouble ahead – the Kennedy Center holds the WNO’s endowment, and lawyers are rolling up their sleeves to thrash out the divorce.”
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