On Monday, June 23, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hosted an event in collaboration with LGBTQ+ performers, including Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller as well as the multi-award-winning musical’s creator Lin-Manuel Miranda.
John Hickenlooper, Colorado senator, arranged the evening’s entertainment along with congressional colleagues Tammy Baldwin, Jacky Rosen, Brian Schatz, and Elizabeth Warren, as a way to protest against Trump’s takeover of the center.
“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 center represents,” Seller says. “Given these recent actions, our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center.”
“What’s happening in the world is deeply concerning, but even in our darkest hours, we must continue to seek out the light. The LGBTQ+ community has long embodied this resilience, maintaining joy and creativity in the face of adversity,” Hickenlooper explains to The New York Times.
In February, President Donald Trump fired the Kennedy Center’s president and several board members appointed by former President Joe Biden and took over as chair. At the time he exclaimed, according to CPR, “We don’t need ‘woke’ at the Kennedy Center.”
“Today, we are taking back a little bit of that, because that building belongs to all of us, and tonight, that building enables us to celebrate one of the greatest, fastest civil rights movements in the history of America, the gay civil rights movement, and we are going to do it through music, humor, inspiration and pride,” Seller says in the aforementioned CPR article.
“We welcome everyone who wants to celebrate the arts, including our compatriots on the other side of the political aisle. We especially welcome artists and audience members who come to the Kennedy Center not for partisan political pranks but to experience excellence in the performing arts,” adds Richard Grenell.
Photo courtesy of social media
