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#kennedycenterhonors — Public Fediverse posts

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  1. Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center is showier, emptier and more political – The Washington Post

    At the gala opening of the Kennedy Center in 1971, Kennedy family members sit in the presidential box. (Thomas J. O’Halloran / Library of Congress)

    Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center is showier, emptier and more political

    In 10 months, the president has transformed Washington’s cultural hub. Now comes his biggest night yet: the Kennedy Center Honors.

    Updated today at 12:48 p.m. EST, 16 min
    By Travis M. Andrews and Janay Kingsberry

    On the day in February that President Donald Trump took over the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, his new board ousted Deborah Rutter, the longtime president of the institution. She gathered her staff to offer a hopeful farewell. That evening, she welcomed other leaders to her home to mourn.

    “As with any wake, you drink a little too much, and you tell stories, and you laugh, and you cry,” Rutter told The Washington Post in a conversation in the spring.

    Rutter had planned to step down at the end of 2025 after leading the Kennedy Center through a decade in which it had diversified its offerings, endured the 2020 lockdown and emerged to boast robust ticket sales and, according to publicly available tax filings, steadily grown revenue.

    She still had four major items on her to-do list: growing the center’s endowment; furthering its work as an arts educator around the country; strengthening the financials of the National Symphony Orchestra; and renewing the contract with CBS or finding a new broadcast partner to air the Kennedy Center Honors.

    Those plans died. But the Kennedy Center did not.

    The center is now guided by a board of Trump loyalists and a new staff including the center’s president, Richard Grenell, a pugnacious veteran of the first Trump administration. They have terminated much of the former staff, lambasted the former leadership and made changes including the addition of high-wattage events like the World Cup draw. They have embarked on a $257 million renovation, in line with Trump’s broader effort to leave his mark on Washington’s cityscape. They’ve boasted about hefty fundraising.

    Now, nearly 10 months in, a picture of a transformed institution has come into view. Standbys of the Kennedy Center’s stages like the National Symphony Orchestra have been strained by plummeting ticket sales and organizational uncertainty. Traveling productions and acts have pulled out. And a new kind of right-leaning programming has begun to take root.

    So what is the Kennedy Center now?

    For one thing, it’s getting a Trumpian revamp. He ordered new marble and the repainting of the exterior columns in austere white. Portraits of the first and second couples now hang in the center’s Hall of Nations, and the building exterior is occasionally lit up in red, white and blue (a move that, many staffers joke, makes the building look like the flag of France, not America).

    “It was in rough shape,” Trump said at an event Saturday ahead of the Kennedy Center Honors. “But we’ve fixed the White House, and we’ve fixed the Kennedy Center.”

    Even the medallions for the Honors, created by Ivan Chermayeff and made for nearly 50 years by a D.C.-area family, have been redesigned by Tiffany & Company.

    And — wittingly or not — the new leadership has made the center a political football for the first time since its opening in 1971. House Republicans have suggested renaming it for Trump (the whole building) and the first lady (just the Opera House). Conservative groups have flocked there to host conferences and meetings. Senate Democrats are investigating the Kennedy Center, accusing Grenell of “self-dealing, favoritism, and waste,” which he has denied.

    Editor’s Note: Read the rest of the story, at the below link.

    Continue/Read Original Article Here: Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center is showier, emptier and more political – The Washington Post

    Tags: 1971, Donald Trump's Kennedy Center, Emptier, Fired Board, History, JFK, Kennedy Center Honors, More Political, President Johnson, Takeover, Ticket Sales Down, Trump's Kennedy Center

    #1971 #DonaldTrumpSKennedyCenter #Emptier #FiredBoard #History #JFK #KennedyCenterHonors #MorePolitical #PresidentJohnson #Takeover #TicketSalesDown #TrumpSKennedyCenter

  2. If anybody needs any reason to watch #jimmyKimmel, this is it. #Trump _absolutely_ shouldn't be #POTUS, and nothing he sees is ever going to convince him of that fact, but it would be really nice to put just another fact on the board he's got to struggle to lie about.

    ew.com/trump-says-if-he-cannot

    #KennedyCenterHonors #FelonInChief #PartyOfStupid #Corruption

  3. It’s easy to block artists such as #kiss or #kidrock on #Spotify. This way they are not included in the playlists you play. If enough people do, it’ll cost them money.
    KISS had some OK songs, but there are so many other much more interesting artists out there, this doesn’t hurt me a bit.

    #KennedyCenter #kennedycenterhonors #trump #votewithyourwallet

  4. I don't know where #GloriaGaynor lies politically, but I hope she pulls out of the #KennedyCenterHonors. #Trump is a man who I am 100% convinced would literally enslave people like her and myself if he could.

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gloria_G

    #USPol #KennedyCenter

  5. Ridiculous

    #Trump said he would host the #KennedyCenterHonors himself in December, as he announced this year’s honorees: the actor Sylvester Stallone, the rock band Kiss, the recording artists George Strait & Gloria Gaynor, & the British actor Michael Crawford. Trump has been intensely interested in the center, naming himself its chairman & purging its traditionally bipartisan board, & said he had rejected prospective honorees he called “wokesters.”

    #AttentionWhore
    reuters.com/world/us/trump-ann

  6. Oh, lord! Lin Manual Miranda manages to push himself into everything.




  7. Yes! Gladys Knight paying due to Dionne Warwick and the song and not to any vocal acrobatics.




  8. Yes! Gladys Knight paying due to Dionne Warwick and the song and not to any vocal acrobatics.

    #KCH
    #KennedyCenter
    #KCHonors
    #KennedyCenterHonors

  9. Yes! Gladys Knight paying due to Dionne Warwick and the song and not to any vocal acrobatics.

    #KCH
    #KennedyCenter
    #KCHonors
    #KennedyCenterHonors

  10. Gloria Estefan will host the 2023 Kennedy Center Honors on CBS, December 27, 9:00 PM, also streaming on Paramount+. This year's honorees include Billy Crystal, Renée Fleming, Barry Gibb, Queen Latifah and Dionne Warwick.
    #KennedyCenterHonors #GloriaEstefan #BillyCrystal #RenéeFleming #BarryGibb #QueenLatifah #DionneWarwick #CBS #ParamojntPlus #Television #Streaming

  11. Tracy Chapman "Hound Dog" 🎸🎶🎶🎸
    Buddy Guy Tribute - Kennedy Center (2012)

    Love this version, plus also, the Obamas enjoying the song, too.

    youtu.be/NXlZz8p59UM

    #Music #TracyChapman #HoundDog #KennedyCenter #KennedyCenterHonors