The management of the John F. Kennedy Centre for the Performing Arts in Washington faces a new legal deadline on 23 September 2026, when it must provide the court with justifications for closing the building amid growing artistic and public protests and a political and legal dispute over US President Donald Trump’s attempts to put his name on the centre and the future of a renovation project for which Congress allocated $257 million.
The date follows a ruling by federal judge Christopher Cooper requiring the centre’s management to notify the court in advance of any significant material changes to the building, including any possible move to demolish it.
Court order and protest surround centre
According to the organisers, the turnout was large enough for protesters to encircle parts of the building twice, in a symbolic move they said was intended to protect it. The organisers said the protesters came from 42 US states and 7 countries, and that the event included artists, former centre employees and trade unionists, as well as actress Linda Carter and members of local bands and choirs.
The participants chanted against the Trump administration’s control of the institution before holding hands around the building. The protest came days after the board of trustees, dominated by members appointed by Trump, voted to close the centre, and after a court ruling barred the addition of an inscription honouring the president to the building without congressional approval.
The overlap between the closure decision and the ruling broadened the dispute, which was no longer limited to the centre’s name but also covered the length of its closure, the nature of the planned work inside it, the future of its programmes and its relationship with performing artists. The order requiring advance notice came after lawyers for Democratic congresswoman Joyce Beatty presented the court with a photograph of Trump aboard Air Force One looking at a painting depicting the Kennedy Centre demolished.
The development followed earlier comments by the president about the possibility of removing the building, heightening concerns about its future. When Trump was asked on 18 September whether he intended to demolish the centre, he did not give a definitive answer. At the same time, he renewed his demand for recognition of his role in raising the funds needed by the institution and in its renovation efforts.
Earlier, he had linked the continuation of the renovation project to the outcome of the legal dispute over putting his name on the building. A report published by The Wall Street Journal on 20 September said there had been another direct confrontation inside the board of trustees between Trump and Beatty, who is leading the lawsuit against attempts to change the centre’s name and make alterations to it without congressional approval.
Reshaping the Kennedy Centre’s management
The documents the centre’s management is due to submit on 23 September are expected to provide more details about the reasons for the closure and the work planned. The crisis began in February 2025, a few weeks after Trump returned to the White House, when he dismissed members of the Kennedy Centre’s board of trustees and appointed replacements.
After being reconstituted, the board elected Trump as its chairman, replacing businessman David Rubenstein. The board also dismissed the centre’s president, Deborah Rutter, and appointed Richard Grenell, the former US ambassador to Germany and one of Trump’s allies, as interim president of the institution. The changes transformed the centre’s leadership, after which artists, producers and artistic advisers began cancelling engagements or relinquishing positions connected to it.
At the end of 2025, the dispute shifted to the institution’s name, when the board of trustees voted to add Trump’s name, with the proposed name becoming the “Donald J. Trump and John F. Kennedy Memorial Centre for the Performing Arts”. The vote faced legal objections based on the argument that the board had no authority to rename an institution whose name and legal status had been established by Congress.
The decision did not remain an internal proposal, as Trump’s name was actually added to the building’s marble façade. The objection then expanded from a dispute over the direction of a cultural institution into a conflict over the identity of a national memorial bearing the name of President John F. Kennedy. Actress and writer Issa Rae was among the artists who cancelled their engagements, withdrawing from a performance that had sold out.
She said her decision was a response to what she regarded as a violation of the values of an institution historically known for celebrating artists from different backgrounds and multiple forms of artistic expression. Musician Rhiannon Giddens, winner of two Grammy awards and a Pulitzer Prize, moved her concert from the Kennedy Centre to another venue in Washington.
She said she could not perform at the centre “with a clear conscience” after the changes imposed by the new board. Pianist and singer Ben Folds also resigned as artistic adviser to the National Symphony Orchestra. Opera singer Renée Fleming left her position as the centre’s artistic adviser, while television producer Shonda Rhimes resigned as treasurer of the board of trustees.
In March 2025, the centre’s programme suffered another blow when the producers of the musical “Hamilton” cancelled a run that had been scheduled to continue for several weeks during 2026. Producer Jeffrey Seller said participation was no longer viable after the institution had become a highly politicised space, stressing that the Kennedy Centre should be open to all Americans.
Artists’ objections also focused on whether the centre would remain a space where people with differing political and cultural positions could work without their appearances on its stages being interpreted as an expression of political support. Stephen Schwartz, the author of “Wicked”, expressed this position when he declined to take part in a concert scheduled at the centre.
Schwartz said the institution had been established as a non-partisan home for free artistic expression and that, in the new circumstances and in his view, appearing there had acquired an ideological significance. His position represents one aspect of the dispute over the effect of the management changes on the centre’s image among those working in the performing arts.
The jazz band The Cookers withdrew from two scheduled concerts, while the Doug Varone dance company cancelled two performances. The company’s founder said the cancellation would cost it about $40,000, showing that some artists were prepared to absorb financial losses rather than perform at the centre under its new management. The centre’s management, by contrast, rejected the idea that the withdrawals indicated the institution was collapsing.
Artists’ withdrawals reach the courts
Richard Grenell accused some artists and activists of using art as a political tool, and said the Kennedy Centre should present performances to everyone regardless of their political views. The confrontation moved to the courts after Joyce Beatty, an ex officio member of the board of trustees, filed a lawsuit challenging the actions taken by the new leadership.
In May 2026, Christopher Cooper ruled that the board of trustees did not have the authority to change the centre’s name in the way it had, and ordered Trump’s name removed. The ruling was carried out in June, and the letters bearing the president’s name were removed from the building’s façade.
The centre’s management then turned to an alternative formula, proposing an inscription crediting Trump with restoring and renovating the building, as well as naming the plaza in front of it “President Donald J. Trump Plaza”. On 15 September, Cooper issued another ruling stating that these changes could not be implemented without congressional approval.
Hours after the ruling, the centre’s board voted to close the building for a renovation project costing up to $257 million, which could last two years. The renovation project itself became part of the dispute after Trump linked the continuation of efforts to save and modernise the centre to receiving recognition for his role in raising the funding.
The courts, meanwhile, subjected any major material changes to additional oversight, including a requirement to provide notice before moving towards demolition or carrying out extensive alterations. Singer and actress Barbra Streisand joined those criticising the developments, describing the dispute surrounding the institution as painful.
Streisand received a Kennedy Centre honour in 2008, one of the institution’s most prominent forms of recognition for artists. Streisand said the honour was not merely a celebration of a career for her and many artists, but expressed a belief in the importance of art in the life of a democracy.
The centre between cultural function and memorial status
Her position came as concerns grew over the building’s fate following Trump’s comments about its condition and the possibility of rebuilding it. Those concerns prompted the court to require advance notice before any major structural change. The Kennedy Centre, the white building overlooking the Potomac River in the US capital, has a dual legal status conferred on it by Congress.
It is the national centre for the performing arts and, at the same time, the living memorial to President John F. Kennedy, making decisions about its name and structure connected to both its cultural function and its memorial status.
More than a year and a half after the reshaping of its management began, the dispute now encompasses the centre’s identity, the future of its programmes, the artists willing to appear on its stages and the audiences who will return after its doors reopen.
The justifications for the closure that the management submits to the court on 23 September will be the next stage in the confrontation over the nature of the renovation and the building’s fate.
