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Kennedy Center Ticket Sales in Existential Death Spiral [1]
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Date: 2025-09-03
The Washingtonian has an absolutely devastating look at just how negative Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has been on the world-renowned cultural institution in DC overall, and some interesting (if hardly surprising) information on how the newly hired director of dance programming, Stephen Nakagawa, actually got his current position:
A self-described “MAGA former dancer” is now leading the Kennedy Center’s dance programming, and he’s inherited a series decimated by local boycotts, according to ticket sales data reviewed by Washingtonian. Stephen Nakagawa, who until earlier this year was a company member at the Washington Ballet, replaces Jane Rabinowitz Raleigh, a veteran local arts administrator who was fired August 21 by Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell.
For those who need a reminder as to just who Trump’s lackey now in control of the Kennedy Center is, here’s his wikipedia entry.
Although most of the Kennedy Center’s 2025–26 dance programming was contractually locked in before President Trump took over leadership of the center in February, Washington audiences are voting with their feet to skip out. Ticket sales are so poor, the Stuttgart Ballet will be performing for an Opera House between 4 and 19 percent full when the German company comes to Washington early next month. BodyTraffic, the Los Angeles troupe booked for the smaller Eisenhower Theatre October 29 and 30, is at 12 percent capacity. “Big yikes,” said a current Kennedy Center staffer who supplied the data, adding that Grenell and other Trump-approved administrators at the center seem surprisingly unconcerned. … All this Sturm und Drang plays as Grenell pushes for a more middle-American Kennedy Center and pursues collaborations with the Museum of the Bible and the Christian Broadcasting Network. Nakagawa first got on his radar early in the new administration by writing a letter complaining about “radical leftist ideologies in ballet,” according to a New York Times story, which Washingtonian was able to confirm. … The fired dance staff say Grenell blamed elitist programming for poor ticket sales, not a widespread boycott of the Kennedy Center by local dance enthusiasts. He told Miller and Burnett that the center should instead be booking acts like performers from So You Think You Can Dance.
Yet more proof (as if any were actually needed) that everything Trump touches dies!
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