The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, seen here in 2014, now has President Donald Trump as its chairman, prompting protests in the arts world
MANDEL NGANThe smash hit musical "Hamilton" has cancelled a planned run at the Kennedy Center because President Donald Trump has destroyed the political neutrality of the US capital's premier cultural venue since taking over as its chairman, the play's producer said Wednesday.
The cancellation was a sharply worded rebuke to Trump's takeover, part of his blitz of policy changes that are upending the city and the country as he attacks people, causes and policies that he describes as being too liberal.
In a statement on X, "Hamilton" producer Jeffrey Seller said the stately white marble complex overlooking the Potomac River in Washington was founded as a place where Americans of all political persuasions could come together to enjoy the arts.
"However, in recent weeks we have sadly seen decades of Kennedy Center neutrality be destroyed," Seller wrote.
"The recent purge by the Trump administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national cultural treasure represents," he added.
The third engagement at the Kennedy Center of "Hamilton," a fabulously popular rap musical about the birth of the United States and its first treasury secretary, originally scheduled for March 3 through April 26 of next year, is now cancelled.
The play was to have been performed as part of celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the US Declaration of Independence.
The high-profile cancellation is the latest in a series of such exits since Trump took over as Kennedy Center chairman last month, ousting Democrats from the center's board and replacing the long-serving president.
The new board is packed with Trump loyalists and the new president is Richard Grenell, the outspoken ambassador to Germany during Trump's first term in office who now serves as his special envoy.
"So we took over the Kennedy Center. We didn't like what they were showing and various other things," Trump told reporters in the Oval Office last month, The Washington Post reported.
"I'm going to be chairman of it, and we're going to make sure that it's good and it's not going to be woke."
A handful of artists have already cancelled plans to perform at the Kennedy Center since the Trump takeover, including the musician Rhiannon Giddens and actress Issa Rae.
"This latest action by Trump means it's not the Kennedy Center as we knew it," the creator of "Hamilton," Lin-Manuel Miranda, said in a joint New York Times interview with Seller on Wednesday.
"The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we're not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center."
In a statement on X, Grenell called the cancellation "a publicity stunt that will backfire."
"The Arts are for everyone -- not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with," Grenell wrote.
dw/aha
Originally published on doc.afp.com, part of the BLOX Digital Content Exchange.
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