November and December are the time of year that you can reliably start to hear the Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy, both at the Kennedy Center and in the halls of your local mall or on the 24-hour, 7-day-a-week holiday music channel on the radio.
If it is the last week in November, it is time for the Opera House at the Kennedy Center to be filled with young kids and adults alike who flock to see their favorite Christmas-time story about the Nutcracker and a rodent-led revolution.
You might be familiar with the Nutcracker’s themes of gift giving, family gatherings, and dancing snowflakes, but have you thought of the darker side of the ballet? Take a moment to reconsider everything you thought you knew about sugar, childhood, and seasonal propaganda.
In a Nutshell
When the curtain opens, you are presented with an innocent holiday ballet, which quickly evolves into a cautionary tale about unchecked authoritarianism and a rodent-led revolution. We are the check on authoritarianism. Join your voice in our chorus of protest against authoritarianism and partisan leadership at the Kennedy Center.
In the ensuing acts, you explore the fragility of innocence and the beginnings of a rodent uprising .
When the clock strikes twelve, the living room expands in proportion, and the furniture becomes hostile. Mice, tired of the oppressive nut-cracking industrial complex, rise up in revolt. Clara intervenes with decisive moral clarity. Are the mice villains or unionizing workers? (no, not the mice you see running across the aisles in the KC concert hall).
As you enjoy your holiday showing of the Nutcracker, performed by the Cincinnati Ballet this year, and contemplate the unionizing rodents of Clara’s dreams, remember that earlier this year, partisan leaders and Board members at the Kennedy Center ousted dance programming staff in retaliation for their efforts in organizing a union of administrative workers at the Center. This is Union-Busting! Ric Grenell, recognize the Kennedy Center United Arts Workers Union NOW!
When you fire the artists who program and curate dance programming, you are engaging in censorship of art. Partisan culture wars and censorship of art are not welcome in OUR KENNEDY CENTER.
It seems on-brand that the Kennedy Center leadership both eliminated its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs and also decided to start booking non-Equity theater productions in its halls. The Kennedy Center did not become the nation’s premier performing arts center by disregarding calls for equity in the workplace, much less by sidelining Equity actors, the union representing professional actors. Artistic excellence depends on equity both on and off stage.
Booking Equity encompasses more than just the actors who are hired for performances. It extends backstage, including stagehands, audio and lighting technicians, administrative staff, and musicians. Equity shows have been a mainstay of Kennedy Center stages, not only because of their quality but because arts institutions recognize the importance of union representation. These actions also put Kennedy Center Unions in a corner.
Lowercase equity ensures that employers like the Kennedy Center respect and provide opportunities for all voices to be heard in the workplace. It also means addressing structural hurdles that have silenced certain voices in the past. These values are even more important as we look at how our institutions platform certain voices in the arts.
Equity in the workplace takes multiple forms, but a bedrock of ensuring equity and fairness in a workplace is recognition of unions. The Kennedy Center currently has approximately 19 unions representing musicians, technicians, and designers, but has yet to recognize the newly formed Kennedy Center United Arts Workers union for administrative staff at the Kennedy Center. In fact, KC leadership has shown its disdain for union solidarity. In August 2025, three dance program staff members were fired for their union organizing/ affiliation with unions. This is union-busting, clear and simple! When you fire the people who are curating artistic programming, you engage in censorship of the arts.
We should not stand by silently as the KC leadership guts union protections and representation at the Kennedy Center. Join us as we unite in a chorus of protest against these anti-union actions by KC leadership.
Shadow Notes are our Shadow Program Notes for Select Kennedy Center Productions, where we provide our spin on the performances at the Kennedy Center.
In a nutshell:
As they prepare for their marriage, Suzanna sings about avoiding the advances of her mistress’s husband- the count, while Figaro measures space for their wedding bed. Figaro and Suzanna, two servants, want to enjoy their wedding night undisturbed by their lord. Count Almaviva attempts to exert his will over Susanna before her marriage. After all, “when you are famous/an aristocrat, they let you.”
But, in Mozart’s telling, the servants are more intelligent than the arrogance and foolishness of the noblemen. Common sense trumps wealth and power. Let that be a lesson for us all!
The Countess, Figaro, and Suzanna plot to humiliate the Count for his philandering. Amid anonymous letters planning a rendezvous in the garden, cross-dressing disguises (no wonder they banned drag queens at the Kennedy Center), mistaken identities, and near misses, the trio and Cherubino trick the Count into begging the Countess for forgiveness. In the end, the servants outwit the Count and portray ordinary people and women as wiser, shrewder, and more civilized than noblemen.
Mozart further critiques noble elites in Don Giovanni, where a libertine nobleman is portrayed as a villain who abuses his power and privilege. (Sound familiar?) Don’t worry- he eventually gets divine retribution. Both operas offer Mozart’s moral critique of aristocratic excess and lack of accountability. Accountability NOW, Ric Grenell!
Mozart’s creative output was financially possible due to the patronage of elite aristocrats- the Archbishop of Salzburg and the Emperor of Austria, the oligarchs of the 18th century. Though Mozart’s bread was often buttered by, and he partied with, many in elite society, his operas were frequently a critique of the social order he participated in. Today, he would likely be making music and operas critical of oligarchs and lampooning the country’s clownish leaders in one of his opera buffas. (comedic opera). Would he be banned from Trump’s stage at the Kennedy Center?
Mozart’s life as a composer constantly butted up against an aristocracy that looked down on musicians as servants and pawns in their toolbox of imperial feudalism. Mozart’s private letters and operas continually put on stage his ideas on the absurdity of oligarchy and the beauty of music and art, which can make fun of those who think their shit don’t stink. Through his choral quartets and arias, Mozart demonstrates that voices singing together produce music that resonates more than the cacophony of multiple people talking at the same time. Likewise, voices in protest are more resonant than those silenced under boycotts.
In The Marriage of Figaro, Mozart, in collaboration with librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte, created a work that critiqued aristocratic privilege and the arbitrary rules of feudalism. This was a bold move; at first, the emperor had banned the play from his court. But Mozart, ever the subversive imp, found a stage for his artistic voice to resonate. Mozart dared to stage this opera on the emperor’s own stage!
American Oligarchy and Buffoonish Leaders
So, what does Mozart’s lampoon of aristocracy mean in American history, particularly in a time period when the US republic is witnessing a partisan oligarchy take over democratic institutions, such as the Kennedy Center?
First, look at our republic’s founding. Much of the money that the author of the original play, Marriage of Figaro, Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais, made from his play, he invested in the American Revolution. Part of the reason we enjoy our independent country today is thanks to the success that Figaro had in criticizing the European aristocracy. How fitting that now, as our nation faces similar threats to independence from oligarchs, we turn to Mozart.
Look no further than the walls around you- The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. It began as a national performing arts center and quickly evolved into a presidential memorial to John F. Kennedy. Over its 54-year history, the Kennedy Center has fostered artistic excellence, built communities, and expanded audiences to reach diverse populations. The Kennedy Center has strived to expand its walls to ensure that all Americans can see themselves on its stages.
All of this is at risk under the Kennedy Center’s partisan takeover. Throughout its 54-year history, the Kennedy Center’s leadership, operations, and artistic programming have been non-partisan, focusing on the arts for all Americans. The Kennedy Center was established to foster and stage America’s arts with diverse voices, critiques of modern society, and arts that push us to question our human existence and the role that the arts play in our democracy.
Screenshot
The Kennedy Center’s Legacy is at Risk
On February 12, 2025, Donald Trump drove a stake through the Kennedy Center’s non-partisan heart and appointed himself and partisan loyalists to use the Center in the administration’s toolbox for shaping the nation’s art scene for political gain.
The Kennedy Center’s doors used to be open for all. Now, there are fears that the new leadership’s rhetoric makes artists of color and those from the LGBT community feel unwelcome. Additionally, Kennedy Center leadership has dismantled the Social Impact Program, which worked hard to expand the Kennedy Center’s stages to the community and to ensure that diverse voices were heard and inclusive audiences walked through the doors.
Additionally, leadership has engaged in union busting by firing all of its dance program staff in retaliation for their support of union efforts by arts administration staff at the center. Doesn’t take much to see why ticket sales have fallen off a cliff.
The once-open doors are at risk of slamming shut. Statements by Ric Grenell saying that there will be no “more drag queens” and “Woke is over at the Kennedy Center” further erode the Center’s inclusive brand. This represents a direct assault on the arts, diversity, and inclusion, as well as the values once held dear at the Kennedy Center.
So far, the programming at the Kennedy Center has retained independence despite changes at the top. In fact, ticket sales and donations designated to the National Symphony and Washington National Opera continue to directly support the independent musicians and programming of the NSO and WNO.
Yet, in light of the eroding brand at the Kennedy Center, many patrons have called for boycotts and abandoned the Kennedy Center, depriving it of much-needed donations and ticket revenue. Indeed, under Grenell’s leadership, the Kennedy Center has experienced staggering fundraising shortfalls, and ticket revenue has plummeted compared to previous years. So much for Making the Kennedy Center Great Again!
We have news for Trump, Grenell, and KC Board Members. Unlike the emperor of Austria, the Kennedy Center is not your stage. The Kennedy Center belongs to all Americans.
WE ARE THE AUDIENCE, PATRONS, DONORS, AND SUPPORTERS OF THE KENNEDY CENTER!
Just as Mozart relied on the emperor’s patronage, our artistic institutions of the Kennedy Center, Washington National Opera, and the National Symphony depend on YOU! Your butts in seats provide ticket revenue, which ensures musicians, artists, and dancers can continue making music, making you laugh, and making you cry. The arts rely on your VOICES in protest.
We, as supporters of the arts in our nation and our nation’s capital, believe our voices in protest are more resonant than a boycott. We put our butts in seats and wear PURPLE to show our support for the musicians, artists, and employees of the Kennedy Center, while protesting the current leadership’s misdirection.
PACK THE HOUSE PURPLE!
We wear PURPLE to show our support for all those artists, musicians, and employees who daily fill the Kennedy Center with reverberations, movement, and echoes of human artistic expression. Without them, the Kennedy Center would merely be a mid-century modern box on the Potomac.
VOICES in Protest are More Resonant than a Boycott
Join us in our chorus of protest as we stand/sit in support of artists, musicians, dancers, actors, stagehands, technicians, and arts administrators who strive daily to ensure diverse voices resonate from our stages.
TAKE ACTION:
1) Add your name to our sign-on letter to the Kennedy Center President and Board members, pushing to save the legacy of the Kennedy Center by calling for accountability on ticket revenue, commitment to the core institutions of the Kennedy Center- National Symphony and Washington National Opera, non-partisan direction at the center, and commitment to Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.
2) Support Kennedy Center Unions who represent the musicians, dancers, stagehands, makeup artists, costume designers, set builders, and arts administrators. They are the people who make the Kennedy Center what it is.
3) Since a hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center in February 2025, dozens of Kennedy Center workers – highly skilled, professional arts workers – have been terminated without cause. Additionally, staff who refused to sign an NDA were denied severance pay.
In support of our colleagues, the Kennedy Center United Arts Workers (KCUAW) has launched a public fundraising campaign to provide financial relief to Kennedy Center workers who were wrongfully terminated, offering $500 direct aid grants.
Your donation will directly help cover basic needs (food, rent, healthcare, transportation, etc.) and ease the financial burden many are facing as they transition to new opportunities.
Jamal Khashoggi Way leads to the Kennedy Center, where today the President of the United States gave a platform, usually reserved for artists, musicians, and dancers, to a murderer. The man, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, nicknamed “bonesaw prince,” was welcomed to the Kennedy Center’s “(blood) red carpet” for the US Saudi Investment Summit.
While the halls of the White House may be accustomed to hosting brutal murderers, dictators, and men engaged in genocide, the Kennedy Center, up to now, had been set aside as a haven for artistic expression. Today’s meeting of MBS and Trump at the US Saudi Investment Summit on the Kennedy Center stage betrays all the ideals we claim to hold about freedom of expression, speech, and the press.
MBS ordered the brutal killing of Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. While he denies it, the CIA has concluded that MBS ordered the killing. Khashoggi was a man who used his writing to hold powerful men in his country accountable. His brutal murder was not sufficient for MBS; he then had Khashoggi dismembered. and tried to cover up his murder.
As if amputations of his hands and fingers, which typed out journalistic critiques of the royal family, would silence the voice of a tireless journalist. The ghosts of many writers, composers, and artists censored and oppressed by authoritarians will attest that these attempts will not succeed.
The fact that today’s US Saudi Investment Summit took place at the Kennedy Center, at a time when Trump is usurping the center’s non-partisan board, is not lost. The Kennedy Center was built as a performing arts center, where people of diverse opinions and ideas can express their artistic voices through dance, music, and theater. All of this is at risk under Trump and Grenell’s tenure at the Kennedy Center.
Kennedy believed the press’s role was to inform, provoke, and even anger the public, and that a nation must be willing to expose its citizens to “unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values.”
Kennedy also saw the role of the arts in a similar way. He once said, “When power corrupts, poetry cleanses. For art establishes the basic human truths, which must serve as the touchstone of our judgment.” Unfortunately, today the Kennedy Center ceded its judgment and role in the arts, yielding to corrupting power, sans cleansing poetry.
The fact that the president has strong-armed control over the public-private governance at the Kennedy Center and is now using its stages as tools in statecraft is beyond the pale. The Kennedy Center should stand for free expression of artistic ideas and voices, not a platform for murderers who kill journalists.
The Kennedy Center should get back to artistic performances on its stages, not hosting murderers. Join us in our chorus of protest demanding accountability at the Kennedy Center. Add your name to our petition to Grenell and the Kennedy Center Boad.
Ever since Trump announced he was replacing the non-partisan board of directors at the Kennedy Center with his hand picked partisan sycophants, announced himself as the chairman of the board and appointed Ric Grenell as the President of the Kennedy Center, many have responded in anger, frustration, and rightfully were looking for a way to push back against this authoritarian grab aimed at the arts.
At first, some audience members called for a boycott.
We get it! We are mad too!
We have been looking for a meaningful way to push back and say NO! This is our Kennedy Center. While our knee-jerk reaction was also to boycott, after we thought about it more, we wanted a response that more effectively conveyed our concerns and emphasized our commitment to the institutions at the Kennedy Center. Ultimately, we sought a response that would bolster support for the Kennedy Center and its artists, musicians, and union workers.
Let’s be clear, the boycott has made a powerful point. Boycotters were able to withhold their ticket dollars and made the point that as long as the Kennedy Center was under hostile management, people would not show up. Great, you made your point, now let’s move on to the next challenge in our strategy to stand up for the arts. The hostile takeover of the center will only last 3 years. We want the institution to endure beyond the next three years.
The primary people harmed by a long-term boycott at the Kennedy Center are not the fools in leadership positions, not Trump, and not the board. The people who will ultimately bear the burden of a long-term boycott are the musicians, artists, and union workers who show up to work every day to entertain us, fundraise to support the entertainment we see, and the backstage hands who move sets around, program lights and audio on stages, and design make-up, costumes, and sets. The Kennedy Center employs nearly 3,000 individuals in total. These employees should not be punished for the actions of those in power.
If we make our point by boycotting the center, these 3,000 individuals lose their job security, healthcare, and a paycheck. As a community and nation, we risk losing high-quality entertainment from our symphony, opera, theater, dance, and Jazz programming. Without these Kennedy Center employees, the Center would merely be a mid-century modern box on the Potomac.
Because we believe in the Kennedy Center, as an institution, and its affiliated organizations, such as the National Symphony and the Washington National Opera, which are institutions we care about, we must do more than merely boycott the center. We see it as our responsibility to stand up against hostile leadership and say: The Kennedy Center stages are ours.
Our physical presence in PURPLE provides a platform for our voices to be heard. By joining in a chorus of protest, our voices are more resonant than the silence of a boycott.
What can you do instead of boycotting?
We NEED YOU to build momentum for our movement!
Buy tickets to performances you want to see. PACK THE HOUSE PURPLE!
Wear PURPLE when you visit the Kennedy Center to demonstrate your support for the musicians, artists, and union employees at the Kennedy Center.
Add your name to our SIGN ON PETITION to HOLD KC leadership accountable
Please share with your friends why it is essential to support the arts at the Kennedy Center. Invite them to a performance and help them find a PURPLE outfit.
When you are at the Kennedy Center, share with your neighbor or the person in line while getting wine why you wear PURPLE and why you support the musicians, artists, and union workers.
At a time when the Kennedy Center is reeling from cratering financial losses due to Ric Grenell and the Board’s fiscal malpractice, they have added one more misstep to their mismanagement. The Washington Post just reported that the Center will bump two National Symphony Orchestra concerts in favor of the FIFA draw in early December. One is a Screening of Home Alone with live orchestra, which has been moved to The Anthem. The other is a MainStage classics concert with NSO conductor Noseda; it has been rescheduled to March. The kicker is that they will not charge FIFA for use of the hall. The Kennedy Center needs all the financial lifeboats it can find. Instead, Grenell and the Board thought it was fiscally responsible to allow a multi-billion-dollar organization to use the concert hall free of charge.
All of this comes amid a storm of Kennedy Center management’s own making. Namely, Grenell and Trump’s board have driven ticket sales into the Potomac, resulting in record-breaking losses. And yet, they still thought it was prudent to give FIFA control of the halls at the Kennedy Center for three weeks free of charge. As if their fiscal recklessness verging on malpractice didn’t speak for itself already, this just adds an extra weight to sink the Kennedy Center to the bottom of the Potomac.
I got some ideas for you Ric and the icks. How about offering the halls’ use to FIFA free of charge, but negotiating a significant gift to the NSO and WNO endowments? I would think a multi-BILLION dollar organization could handle such a lift. I mean, you and your cronies in the White House are adept at pay-for-play schemes. Let’s use it to the advantage of the Kennedy Center. You could ensure the Center and its institutions are financially solvent for the foreseeable future.
Alternatively, consider seeking a large donation from FIFA, calling it the FIFA Audience Endowment. Use that money to rebuild the Social Impact Initiative and provide free tickets to people from our communities who may never have had the opportunity to visit the Kennedy Center. (How about 40% of seats in the house get subsidized by this endowment to make up for the staggering losses you have caused.) This would serve two purposes: to expand the audience that gets to enjoy the Kennedy Center’s artistic excellence and to make up for the substantial losses in ticket revenue that you have overseen since taking the helm.
Ric and Kennedy Center Board Members, you have a tremendous opportunity. You can pick up the Kennedy Center and find creative ways to reverse the backsliding that has happened as a result of your own self-inflicted wounds; Bandage up the wounds and get to work. You are the fiscal shepherds of our premier performing arts center. It is not only your legal obligation to ensure financial health, but also a moral imperative. Put on those creative thinking caps and help the Kennedy Center stay afloat. Next time, take the lifeboat when one is offered.
We must push back against the current direction of partisan hacks at the helm of the Kennedy Center. Pack the House PURPLE in support of musicians, artists, and union workers who make the Kennedy Center great! Sign our Petition to hold Kennedy Center leadership accountable.
Below is our Sign on Petition to be delivered to Ric Grenell and the Kennedy Center Board. Please sign on to show your support for Kennedy Center Musicians, Artists, and employees. Our voices in protest are more resonant than a boycott.
Dear President Ric Grenell and Kennedy Center Board Members,
WE ARE THE AUDIENCE, PATRONS, DONORS and SUPPORTERS OF THE KENNEDY CENTER!
We join to raise our collective voices denouncing the direction of programing and long term sustainability of dropping ticket revenues and donor contributions under your failed leadership.
Your leadership has ushered in stunning losses in ticket revenues from performances that previously saw audiences of 80-90% capacity. Now those numbers are closer to 40-50% capacity. That results in millions in loses from ticket sales. All on your watch. Since 2018 ticket sales revenues were at record highs. It speaks volumes that since your ascendancy to the presidency of the board that the Center has seen its worst ticket sales revenue since the pandemic. What are you doing over there?
Considering ticket sales are traditionally about 1/3 of the Kennedy Center’s operating budget, we are deeply concerned about the storm you have unleashed on the Center’s fiscal future.
You inherited a ship that was sailing smoothly only to hit an iceberg once you took over. The ship has been sinking since you and the new board took control. Any business or government leader in your position would be removed and held accountable for their abject failure.
As board members you have a fiscal responsibility to ensure the Center’s long-term fiscal viability. The numbers under Grenell’s leadership should cause you to dig deep to understand the causes for failure as well as short- and long-term solutions to reverse the trend.
Over its 54-year history the Kennedy Center has fostered artistic excellence, built artistic communities, and expanded audiences to reach diverse populations and conducted community outreach in local schools. The Kennedy Center strived to expand its walls to ensure that all Americans could see themselves on its stages.
All of this is at risk under the Kennedy Center’s partisan takeover. For its 54 year history Kennedy Center leadership, operations and artistic programming were non-partisan and focused on arts for all Americans. The Kennedy Center was established to foster and stage America’s arts with diverse voices; critiques of modern society and arts that push us to question our human existence and the role that arts play in our democracy.
You have failed to meet the moment and ensure that the Kennedy Center is a success now and into the future.
We, as longtime audience members, donors, and community members demand accountability. If the board is not going to do its job on fiscal responsibility, we will. We demand answers about what you are doing to reverse the plummeting ticket sales and the destruction of the Kennedy Center brand.
The Kennedy Center is currently producing the Marriage of Figaro. Back in Mozart’s time the arts relied on the patronage of the emperor and the aristocracy to fund artistic endeavors. Today, arts in America and at the Kennedy Center rely on community engagement, ticket revenue, and robust fundraising efforts. That is your job! Based on the numbers, you are failing in all these respects.
Part of your failure is the accurate perception that your appointment and the complete gutting of the prior non-partisan board have signaled that the Kennedy Center has abdicated its role as a non- partisan public private partnership. This brand killing move has resulted in many individuals boycotting performances and withholding donations at the Kennedy Center because it is now seen as a political vassal of the president sitting in the White House. In the past, the Center enjoyed massive support from all Americans regardless of partisan affiliation. Your brand killing moves are detrimental to the future sustainability and fiscal viability of the Center. You must reverse course.
In addition to killing the Kennedy Center brand you have fired many individuals who provided artistic expertise in dance programming, marketing, audience development, fundraising, and social impact. You may like to engage in bombastic rhetoric that calls out diversity, equity and inclusion as woke or the social impact team at the center as not central to revenue building, but these programs and staffing are what bring excellence in the arts to Kennedy Center stages. Artistic excellence and community engagement bring in audiences. Audiences bring in ticket revenue. You may look in bewilderment about why ticket sales fell off after your takeover. The answer to your perplexing stare is you gutted the Center of everything and everyone who ensured its success over the years.
You cannot run an arts center when you fire the artists and arts administrators who know how to develop and plan performances that audiences want to see. You cannot lead an organization whose mission is to open the walls of the center and to expand access to its stages when you gut social impact and DEI efforts. All these actions you have taken have caused the perilous drop in ticket and donor revenues and have sullied the Kennedy Center brand.
Finally, your recent efforts to fire administrative staff who worked to organize Kennedy Center admin staff into a union is shameful. The Kennedy Center for years has hosted more than five unions on its campus. These unions represent the people- musicians, stagehands, and technicians- who make the Kennedy Center what it is. Without them the Center would cease to operate. Without the Kenndey Center’s unions it would merely be a mid-century modern box on the Potomac.
Unlike Mozart and the emperor’s patronage, the Kennedy Center’s stages are not yours, Trump’s or any partisans’ stages to wield as a tool in your culture wars. The halls and stages at the Kennedy Center belong to all Americans. WE ARE THE AUDIENCE, PATRONS, DONORS and SUPPORTERS OF THE KENNEDY CENTER!
Our Demands:
Within 3 months articulate a detailed plan for how you will reverse revenue shortfalls while maintaining the integrity of The National Symphony, Washington National Opera, Dance, Theater and Jazz programing
Within 3 months develop a plan for changing public perception that the Kennedy Center is a partisan vassal.
Develop a plan with the President to appoint new members of the board of directors that more accurately represent the bipartisan nature of our nation. Return governance at the Kennedy Center to the prior non-partisan public private partnership.
Provide transparency in ticket sales revenue and comparisons to prior years.
Reinstate employees of the Dance programing staff, social impact team, and marketing teams who were fired in retaliation for their lawful union organizing
Recognize the newly organized Kennedy Center’s Arts Workers Union.
Commit to healing the divide you have ripped open at the Kennedy Center and cease engaging in rhetoric that destroys Kennedy Center brand and repels people from our community and artists from feeling welcome at the Kennedy Center.
Originally written in response to NSO strike of 2024, still relevant in why it is important as audience members to support the Musicians of the Kennedy Center.
The public should know that after this strike authorization vote, the Kennedy Center leaders went on social media to justify their efforts to lowball the musicians of the National Symphony Orchestra in contract negotiations.
One talking point suggested that the world-class musicians in the National Symphony work only 20 hours a week and are lucky to have their current salaries.
Anyone who has been in band or learned how to play an instrument knows that mastering a classical musical instrument not only requires many years of rigorous training, highly competitive auditions, costly lessons and instrument purchases but also requires constant practice and both physical and mental preparation for the 20 hours of public-facing rehearsals and performances. This also doesn’t account for the time that professional musicians have to maintain their instruments and, in some cases, to make their own reeds, or to stay in the shape required to play physically and mentally demanding orchestral works.
The musicians of the National Symphony are not asking for compensation that is out of line with what other musicians at their level earn. And given that the Kennedy Center’s mission is to serve as the nation’s premier performing arts center, its leaders should aim to make the symphony a competitive employer, rather than risk musicians decamping for a different city that chooses to support the arts more generously.
Meanwhile, Kennedy Center President Deborah Rutter makes almost $1.4 million. Perhaps, because her salary is more than eight times the current base salary for NSO musicians, she can get onstage and play a woodwind quintet (bassoon, oboe, flute, clarinet and French horn) all at the same time.
Without the musicians in the National Symphony, the Kennedy Center would be an empty building. It is time for Kennedy Center management to pay the musicians who give it a reason for being.
I’ve got a provocative suggestion. Perhaps, we can flip the score on this whole ticket sales revenue debacle at the Kennedy Center.
Here in the US, we have always assumed that performing arts have to be somewhat self-sustaining. The two primary ways organizations achieve financial sustainability are through ticket revenue and donations. It’s a vicious cycle that orchestras, museums, opera companies, dance companies, and theaters endure year after year. If you start to look at organizations’ tax returns, you may get dizzy at the sheer magnitude of revenue that they must raise every year just to stay in existence. There is a reason that the arts in Europe were previously funded by monarchs and emperors and today are primarily funded by their governments.
With the precipitous decline in ticket sales at the Kennedy Center, we are seeing the house offer complimentary tickets in an attempt to ”paper the hall” with people in seats.
What a great idea!
Let’s reverse the trend of the last 100 years, where arts organizations have been required to sustain their existence; it’s time for the government to fund a larger portion of our arts and performing arts budgets at the Kennedy Center and throughout the nation’s communities.
If institutions like the Kennedy Center were liberated from the cycle of scrapping for ticket revenue and donations year after year, maybe they could have the freedom to make programming choices differently. With choice, performing arts centers could focus on ensuring their stages better reflect the diversity of their communities’ populations. Perhaps, performing arts centers could take risks on productions that expand our view of the arts and the voices heard on our stages.
Or, if they are handing out more free tickets, offer those tickets to school groups or to community groups that may not have attended a live performance before. The ironic part of all this is that many of these initiatives have been undertaken by the nation’s performing arts centers, which have limited ticket revenue and donor-based budgets. In fact, the Kennedy Center’s Social Impact Team did a lot of this work before Grenell shut its doors.
Ric, the opportunities to learn from your failures are endless.
Yes! Let’s learn from this calamitous experience of falling ticket sales. Now is the time for government-subsidized arts, just like in Europe.
All free and idealistic thinking aside, it is indeed a disaster that Grenell has allowed the Kennedy Center’s programming and ticket revenue to plummet. It is embarrassing that under his mismanagement, seats at the Kennedy Center remain empty for many performances. He and his board alone are responsible for these failures.
The musicians, artists, and employees at the Kennedy Center continue to come to work, performing at the highest standards; they should not have to bear the cost of Grennell and the Board’s incompetence. They deserve better than this.
So, Trump, Grenell, and Kennedy Center Board members: Put your money where your mouth is and Make the Kennedy Center Great Again, ushering in the golden age!
Support the Center’s endowment to ensure its long-term financial stability and continued artistic programming. Advocate with Congress for more direct funding of programming at the Center and for performing arts in communities across the country. Reinstate the Social Impact Team at the Center and fund it so that more Americans can enjoy the arts on the Kennedy Center’s stages and see themselves represented on stage.
Get your partisan hands off of arts programming and let the artists, musicians, and arts administrators do what they do best.
Based on our scrappy, yet unscientific math and sampling skills, we estimated Kennedy Center ticket revenue losses based on available seats data on the Kennedy Center booking website. We compiled this data BEFORE the excellent reporting by the Washington Post, which used more scientific methods but came to the substantially same conclusion: Ric Grenell and the Kennedy Center board have been reckless with the Kennedy Center’s finances. They have some splain’n to do!
National Symphony:
A sold-out NSO concert could generate approximately $121,000 in ticket revenue per concert if it were to sell out. That is about $7.9 million a year.
Currently, NSO concerts are about 40% full. That is a 60% shortfall in ticket revenue that Ric Grenell and the Board are leaving on the table.
That loss totals about $73,000 a concert and $4.3 million in lost revenue over the entire season.
Washington National Opera:
A sold-out opera could bring in about $434,000 in ticket sales each performance, or about $16 million for an entire season.
Currently WNO audiences are at about 60% capacity.
This results in approximately $173,000 in losses per performance and $6.4 million in lost revenue for the entire season.
Ric Grenell and Board’s Self-Inflicted Wound
The Kennedy Center’s loss in ticket revenue is a direct result of top Kennedy Center leadership and Trump’s hand-picked partisan board’s fiscal mismanagement.
Before 2025, ticket revenues and audiences were much more saturated with butts in seats. Houses were packed at about 80-90%. Two years after the pandemic, no less.
Hear that, Ric Grenell? You have surpassed post-pandemic revenue losses by a significant margin! We have questions for Ric Grenell and his Board. What happened?!
Other lost revenue
These numbers don’t even account for the lost revenue from blockbuster shows like Hamilton, which could bring in nearly $50 million in revenue to the Center and its long-term partners, the Alvin Ailey Dance Company, which routinely sells out every performance. Also, we did not estimate ticket sales for Theater and Dance performances. But, prior reporting indicates that these are down with similar trends to the NSO and WNO.
It doesn’t take much to understand that when you get rid of the arts administrators and experts who know how to program performances audiences want to see, and when you bash the Kennedy Center brand with bombastic culture war rhetoric, and when you book non-equity shows, the integrity and brand of excellence that previously was synonymous with the Center will quickly erode away.
Ticket revenue accounts for approximately one-third of the Kennedy Center’s budget. It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that if the trend under Grenell’s first nine months continues, the Kennedy Center may soon have the water of the Potomac lapping up against its stages..
We deserve better than Grenell and the partisan Board’s gross and reckless mismanagement.
Methodology
These estimates were made by looking at sample seat availability maps for performances of the Washington National Opera and National Symphony for the week of October 10-30-25. We estimated average seat prices and then applied current ticket sales and seat vacancy to the whole season for both the NSO and WNO.
Projected losses are compared to current sales at 100% capacity. Actual losses may be different based on the fact that other years’ seasons may not have been sold out to capacity. Although The Washington Post’s reporting indicates that between 2018 and the end of 2024, audience levels were at near 80-90% capacity. Also, it is impossible to know how many of the occupied seats in the system were given away as comps to paper the house and make it look fuller.
Kennedy Center financial reports are shrouded in secrecy, so citizen reporters like us and The Post are left to rely on unscientific estimates to understand the inner workings of the nation’s premier performing arts center. We demand more transparency from the Kennedy Center!
