The new chairman of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts had a question for the board. Which musical is best, “The Phantom of the Opera” or “Les Misérables”? (Several trustees seemed to agree it was “Phantom.”)
He mused about how great it could be if he hosted the Kennedy Center Honors (“The king of ratings,” he called himself). And he floated the idea of giving awards to dead figures in culture and sports, including Luciano Pavarotti, Elvis Presley and Babe Ruth.
Monday was President Trump’s first visit to the Kennedy Center since he took it over last month by replacing all the Biden appointees on the board of the once bipartisan institution and having himself elected chairman.
As he gathered members of the new board on the stage of its opera house he expressed strong and sometimes surprising opinions on a variety of matters, according to an audio recording of his private remarks obtained by The New York Times, which was confirmed as authentic by a participant.
Asked about the recording, a Kennedy Center official pointed to a social media post by its new president, Richard Grenell, which said that Mr. Trump wants to save the center and “ensure it is the premier Arts institution in the United States” and a place where “EVERYONE is welcome.”
Here are highlights from Mr. Trump’s remarks.
He reminisced about a memorable night at “Cats.”
Mr. Trump, who as a young man dreamed of becoming a theater producer, told the board that he had been informed that Broadway shows sell the best at the Kennedy Center, and pledged to present many of them. And he waxed poetic about his love of Broadway shows of a certain vintage, especially Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Cats.”
He recounted attending the Broadway premiere of “Cats” decades ago, saying that he had gone to see the musical with “somebody I should not have been there with,” and that they were seated in the fourth row. (“They were treating me good because I was a young star, for whatever reason,” he said. “This is a crazy life I’ve had.”)
Mr. Trump said he was initially turned off by the sight of dozens of dancers lying onstage. (He recalled thinking: “You’ve got to be kidding. Let’s get out of here.”) But then he had a change of heart.
“I walked in, I saw all these bodies, and then I noticed those bodies were gorgeous,” Mr. Trump said. “They had silk tights on, and they were all ballerinas, and women from Broadway. And men.” About the men, he added: “I didn’t find those particular bodies as attractive to be honest.”
After a board member asked if there were any new musicals that were not “totally woke,” somebody replied that, in a break with the past, the center would be doing some shows not affiliated with Actors’ Equity, the union representing actors. The person said that the change “opens us up for a whole bunch of more options as well as a lot more money.”
He wants to remake the Kennedy Center Honors, which he said celebrated “radical left lunatics.”
Mr. Trump has been preoccupied with the Kennedy Center Honors, the annual awards ceremony, since his first term, after several artists being honored criticized him. In response, the president boycotted the ceremony, breaking with tradition.
At the meeting on Monday, Mr. Trump complained that the center had been celebrating “radical left lunatics” and proposed giving posthumous awards to Pavarotti, Presley and Ruth. (Artists being honored posthumously, of course, cannot weigh in on current politics. Pavarotti, who died in 2007, had already been honored by the Kennedy Center in 2001; in 2016 his heirs asked Mr. Trump to stop playing his recordings at campaign rallies.)
Kennedy Center Honors have traditionally been bestowed on artists. But Mr. Trump suggested they might also look to the world of sports, politics and business, naming the casino mogul Steve Wynn, a major Republican donor, as a potential recipient. (Mr. Trump appointed Mr. Wynn’s wife, Andrea, to the Kennedy Center’s board.)
“You could do entrepreneurs, you could do people that, you know, that were really in charge of show business,” he said. “I would say you could do politicians, you could do sports stars.”
Mr. Trump’s fellow board members took turns suggesting names of artists that the center should honor, including Celine Dion, Sylvester Stallone, Johnny Mathis and Andrea Bocelli.
Mr. Trump, drawing on his experience in television, took aim at the Honors show, a star-studded event that is broadcast each year on CBS. “I didn’t like it,” he said. “I couldn’t watch it. And the host was always terrible.” (Queen Latifah was the host last year.)
Then he offered an idea for who might host the show: himself.
“Believe me, I don’t want to do it, I don’t want to do it,” he said.
“I have enough publicity,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘Trump wants to be the host.’ I don’t want to. But I want this thing to be successful.” He said he would like to see the Kennedy Center go “slightly more conservative” with the stars it honors.
And Mr. Trump said he would be “the king of ratings, right? Whether we like it or not, the king of ratings.”
His cultural world is still grounded in the 1980s.
Mr. Trump has long had an affinity for the 1980s, the “Bonfire of the Vanities” era in which he made his name in New York. His remarks on Monday showed that his cultural tastes are still grounded in that decade.
He singled out Betty Buckley, the actress and singer, whom he had heard sing the role of Grizabella in the original production of “Cats” on Broadway.
“So we’re sitting there and then all of a sudden the lights go on and you see these people moving so incredibly, like nobody can move except a professional dancer,” he said. “And anyway, then Betty Buckley gets up and sings ‘Cats.’ And the place went crazy.”
When someone else at the meeting suggested that Ms. Buckley could help the Kennedy Center, Mr. Trump responded: “Is Betty Buckley still alive?” (She is.) “She had the best voice,” he said. “Of all the great voices and stars, bigger stars than her, she had the best voice.”
He lamented that “Phantom of the Opera” has closed, calling it “ridiculous,” and praised the Broadway star Michael Crawford, known for “Phantom” and other hits. And he voiced a preference for original Broadway casts.
“Oftentimes it seems the original is the best, but I don’t know,” he said.
He has ideas for fixing up the Kennedy Center’s buildings.
Mr. Trump has said the Kennedy Center is in “tremendous disrepair,” and he offered a few ideas at the board meeting for fixing it up. (The center, like other federally owned properties, has deferred some maintenance because of budget constraints.)
He said the center should build a band shell on the Potomac, an idea officials have considered over the years. And, sounding like a real estate developer, he said he wanted to cover the center’s signature columns with marble or granite.
“They never covered the I-beam,” he said. He added: “I think the I-beams should be covered with some incredible stone — probably marble, but marble’s a bad outdoor stone, but looks better than granite. But it should be covered. And we’ll do that. We’ll add that in. But it’s not a small job.”
To pay for his plans at the center, Mr. Trump said he would seek money from Congress to help “bring it back.” After touring the center, he said he was surprised by its size. And he took a swipe at his predecessor.
“I had no idea how big it was, because I just walked the whole place,” he said. “Believe me, Biden couldn’t have done it. He would not have been able to walk the place.”
He said that “the whole place needs work,” including the main hall.
Mr. Trump criticized the center’s 2019 expansion, a privately funded project which cost $250 million and which added a complex of smaller spaces for rehearsals and performances, gardens, an outdoor video wall, classrooms and a cafe. Mr. Trump described it as “all this nonsense” and complained of “crazy rooms.”
“Think of it: They got $250 million,” he said. “I’m trying to figure out where they spent it. Somebody made a lot of money, that I can tell you.”
Mr. Trump praised the new Kennedy Center board, which is packed with more than 30 of his allies, including several donors to his campaign. (He joked, however, that some members “didn’t give me anything; they probably won’t be here too long.”)
Then, as the new chairman prepared to call his meeting to a close, Mr. Trump thanked the board members for their service.
“But you know what? It’s good to see you,” he said. “Thank you very much. You’re really amazing, actually.”
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