Culture critic on Kennedy Center board’s crusade to restore Trump’s name to the venue : NPR

NPR’s Steve Inskeep asks Washington Post culture critic Philip Kennicott about the Kennedy Center board’s increasingly aggressive quest to restore President Trump’s name to the building.

STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:

Our discussion of this topic also ain’t over because Philip Kennicott is with us. He’s a longtime culture critic at The Washington Post who’s been writing about President Trump’s many interventions into the Kennedy Center. Mr. Kennicott, good morning.

PHILIP KENNICOTT: Good morning.

INSKEEP: What do you make of the efforts we just heard about to work around the law?

KENNICOTT: Well, the judge will have to decide whether or not this rather subtle attempt to get Trump’s name branded onto the building a couple of times is OK with the 1964 law that creates the center. But I think the real, important issue here is simply the fact that we know from what’s happened at the center, once Donald Trump took it over, that if his name is on that building, audiences will not come back. Performers will not play there. And the Kennedy Center will effectively die.

INSKEEP: Wow. Why don’t you just talk me through why that would be?

KENNICOTT: Well, so this is going way back to the beginning of the administration. When Donald Trump took over the center, it became very clear that there was a growing audience boycott. And then back in December of last year, when they literally put his name onto the building, that boycott became a kind of cascade of people leaving, artists leaving. And effectively, the center, which is meant to honor the 35th president by hosting and presenting the performing arts – they couldn’t book groups to come. People were canceling. And the boycott, we can see from financial numbers, inside numbers, had a really devastating impact on the center’s finances.

INSKEEP: Let’s talk that through. How much trouble is the Kennedy Center in as an institution?

KENNICOTT: Well, I think the fact that the board is asking for a two-year closure to do these renovations indicates that it’s extreme trouble. They say that this is necessary to do the renovations more efficiently and cheaply. It would cost more to keep the Kennedy Center open, which has always been the path they’ve used in the past. They would close the opera house but keep the symphony hall open, that kind of thing. This two-year closure really, I think, is about the fact that they’ve got nothing to put on the stage. They can’t function as a center because the two essential parts of their ecosystem, the audience and the artists, don’t want to be in the building if Trump’s name is on it.

INSKEEP: I’m thinking some of the institutions that called the Kennedy Center home have moved out. What is still there that is a regular, recurring part of the Kennedy Center program?

KENNICOTT: Well, the main thing, the main constituent that really is in a position that makes it impossible for them to leave is the National Symphony Orchestra. And right now, the symphony has planned to perform its upcoming season in six different halls around the city and to go on tour a lot. So they’ve already figured out a way to get out of the Kennedy Center because they think it’s going to close. The opera company has left completely. They’ve broken their association with the Kennedy Center. So beyond the symphony and a chamber music series and a few other small things – these performances at something called the Millennium Stage – there’s really nothing going on in the building at the moment.

INSKEEP: You mean it’s just empty most nights? The stages are dark most nights?

KENNICOTT: Yeah. I mean, if you go down there now – now, of course, we’re in the summer, so it would always be a lot darker. But in the summer, they traditionally would have some big glitzy musical that would keep audiences coming. But I was there at the end of the regular spring season, and it was ghost-like. It was really sad. I’ve been going for more than a quarter century, and it’s always a vibrant place. You can – you know, you could swing a dead cat and not hit anybody walking through the halls at this point.

INSKEEP: Do you perceive the board of the Kennedy Center doing anything about the lack of performances that you describe? In short, are they doing anything about anything except making sure that they glorify Donald Trump as much as possible?

KENNICOTT: I think that’s the key issue here. You know, it should be painfully clear to the board that Trump’s name is toxic to the very people the center is meant to serve. So if they’re not taking that fact into account, they can’t actually program the building. So they’re not actually keeping the building functioning at this point.

INSKEEP: Philip Kennicott writes about culture and the arts for The Washington Post. Thanks for your insights. Really appreciate it.

KENNICOTT: Thanks for having me.

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