The first time I performed at the Kennedy Center, it was at the Millennium Stage. It sounds really fancy, but all of the shows at the Millennium are free. Beforehand, I spent nearly an hour walking the building, marveling that a government complex could feel so friendly.
It was early evening on a weekday, with an audience made up mostly of hard-core comedy fans, friends from high school and folks looking for a warm, dark place to sit for a few hours. Some were all three. A kid did homework on his laptop. A woman sat in the front with two grocery bags, drinking directly from a family-size carton of orange juice and laughing, laughing, laughing. The mixture of prestige and eccentricity made the night feel bizarre and special.
A few years later, I got to play the Eisenhower Theater — one of the for-real fancy places downstairs. My parents came down from Boston for it. There was a presidential box whose upholstery had the presidential seal on it, as did the cupcakes in the mini-fridge. About two minutes into the show, I noticed someone with a shopping bag in the front row. A different lady this time, not chugging orange juice and not laughing as much, but it made me feel impossibly warm.
That might have been my last time performing there.
In the latest round of President Trump’s imposition of personal politics and self-promotion, he’s closed a huge chunk of the main building, saying it needs a costly renovation — which he will authorize only if the building bears his name. Given that the Kennedy Center is a national memorial and not a hotel or a steak-by-mail company, legal challenges to a renaming are unlikely to be over soon.
Theatergoers are already losing. In 2025, the vision Mr. Trump laid out to the board — newly stocked with political allies, loyalists and, worst of all, Lee Greenwood — was depressingly free of thought about curation. It was all about putting on shows that make money — even though the center’s programming was $40 million in the black during the last year of the Biden administration.
For me and the performers I know, it doesn’t make sense to play the venue now unless you’re avowedly and solidly Trump-supporting. By my count, only three headlining comedians performed at the Kennedy Center this year, all vocal Trump supporters at some point.
One of the reasons Mr. Trump has given for futzing with an arts venue that previously seemed immune from futzing, is that the Kennedy Center represented the excesses of wokeism — all diversity celebrations and rainbow flags and N95-masked Hamlet. His claim was that under his administration, niche liberal foolery would be stopped and replaced by classy, gorgeous, heterosexual theatrical productions. Like, for example, “Les Misérables,” one of Mr. Trump’s favorite shows. As everyone knows, there’s nothing more heterosexual than “Les Miz.”
In recent years, when I would check the calendar or see shows there, I was struck by how diverse the programming was — but diverse in the underused, literal sense. Ballet. Comedy. Country. Opera. Hip-hop. Theater — from “Guys and Dolls” to the avant-garde. And honestly, in its diversity, I often found offerings that weren’t for me. Dull re-heatings of old plays, pedestrian touring stops for milquetoast musicals and Thai contemporary dance. Oof. But the not-for-me productions were part of the Kennedy Center’s appeal. The remit seemed to be not far-off from the Smithsonian’s down the street: art that was in the public interest and art that should be.
If you played the Kennedy Center, you’d meet the sweet weirdos who are like the sweet weirdos who program and promote theaters all around the country. Culture nerds and eggheads and snobs who care about bringing in the big headliners and also root around in the bargain bins at music festivals for up-and-comers an audience might like.
The venues with curation on their mind are nicer places to play — and the audiences get better shows when performers are jazzed to play stages with history or mystique or a staff proud to work there. Like Carnegie Hall or Red Rocks outside Denver or the Apollo in Harlem, the Kennedy Center carried with it an imprimatur of artistic approval that enveloped both the audience and the performer. No more.
The mission to narrow the cultural ambitions of the center has truly been accomplished. For me, the chief alienation is in its featurelessness. The calendar now still has some dates, but it’s staler than month-old presidential box cupcakes. The Brass Band of Northern Virginia. A few Americana guitar specialists and screenings of “Scooby Doo.” Give me back my inaccessible Thai dancing.
The comedians and actors I know no longer talk about it like a venue you want to visit. The Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize — which Steve Martin, an honoree, once referred to as the only significant American award for comedy “apart from money” — have been so thoroughly politicized as to be nearly worthless. I honestly feel bad for the talented people still performing there and the surely handcuffed staff doing their best to keep it all going.
I’m back in Washington next week. Well, in Maryland, in North Bethesda — the shows are at the Music Center at Strathmore. There were other places, but I’m doing this one because two people who used to book the comedy at the Kennedy Center are pretty involved with this new venue. My friend David, who lives in town, told me that it’s a bit of a neighborhood spot so I “might get a weird mix.” I hope it’s the weirdest mix possible.
I have also noticed that there’s an election coming up. And administrations don’t last forever. So maybe I’ll get to come back and perform next to the Potomac — for people who find me funny and for people who decide I’m not for them. Strangers, folks I know from high school, college students, locals, tourists. Sitting in the dark with groceries and their friends and other Americans; laughing, laughing, laughing.
Alex Edelman appears in and writes for the TV show “The Paper.” He won Emmy and Tony Awards for his comedy show “Just for Us.”
The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips. And here’s our email: [email protected].
Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Bluesky, WhatsApp and Threads.
The post I Loved Performing at the Kennedy Center. I May Never Do It Again. appeared first on New York Times.
