WASHINGTON—The Kennedy Center’s Trump-aligned board voted Tuesday to close most of the performing-arts complex for renovation, hours after a federal judge ruled that President Donald Trump’s name could not be returned to the building without congressional approval. At last, the nation’s artists can stop distracting everyone from the cultural institution’s true purpose: arguing over whose letters go above the door.
The venue will now present its most ambitious production to date, a sprawling legal epic tentatively titled Nameplate! It features a federal statute, a $257 million renovation, an appeal, several hundred feet of temporary fencing and a gold inscription with the dramatic range of a chandelier falling during intermission.
U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper wrote that the board could not install memorials for Trump—or anyone else—without Congress’s blessing. The ruling followed an August board resolution proposing an inscription crediting Trump for restoring and renovating the center, plus a plan to call the grounds “President Donald J. Trump Plaza.” Congress, which named the center solely for John F. Kennedy, had apparently failed to include a loyalty-points program.
The Justice Department appealed, ensuring that America’s finest legal minds can spend the coming months deciding whether a performing-arts center needs one presidential name, two presidential names or a scrolling LED ticker capable of accommodating future administrations.
Every building deserves executive producer credits
According to the Associated Press, the board cited safety concerns and severe financial problems in voting to close most of the main building. A partial ceiling collapse earlier this month intensified concerns about the aging complex. Trump said repairs would not proceed unless courts allowed the board’s naming plans to move forward.
This creates an exciting new architectural principle: a roof may require steel, concrete and skilled labor, but it cannot be emotionally supported until the facade has thanked the correct person in sufficiently large serif type.
Congress has already allocated $257 million for repairs. Trump said he had given $17 million to an endowment supporting the institution. The proposed recognition would have credited him for restoration, while an additional inscription could appear if a fundraising campaign reached $100 million. In ordinary philanthropy, a donation might get your name on a lobby, a rehearsal room or a chair nobody may sit in. Washington has advanced the form by attempting to turn the entire national memorial into the donor wall.
For audiences, the dispute offers a rare fusion of theater genres. It has tragedy, because the building is reportedly unsafe. Comedy, because the fight is about exterior lettering. Suspense, because nobody knows whether the next court filing will arrive before the next chunk of ceiling. And immersive theater, because everyone attempting to attend a performance is now physically outside.
The show must go into appellate review
The Kennedy Center was created as a living memorial to President Kennedy and has spent decades hosting opera, ballet, orchestras, comedy and awards ceremonies. It is now experimenting with a more contemporary program: governance as performance art.
In the opening movement, a politically aligned board adopts a naming resolution. In the second, a judge explains that Congress writes the naming rules. In the finale, workers erect fencing while lawyers rehearse the phrase “irreparable harm.” The audience is encouraged to remain seated at home and silence all devices except whichever one displays the docket.
The practical stakes are serious. Performances, staff, artists, audiences and a nationally important building all face disruption. The comic absurdity is that essential repairs and institutional survival have become entangled with a branding dispute so ornate it should arrive wearing an opera cape.
Washington may eventually settle the matter through legislation, litigation or the discovery of a tasteful plaque large enough to satisfy everyone yet small enough to remain visible from Earth. Until then, the Kennedy Center’s curtain is down, the lawyers are onstage and the marquee remains the only performer guaranteed top billing.