It was the night time after President Trump had formally taken over the Kennedy Middle and made himself its chairman, and two well-dressed Washington ladies have been wandering alongside the plush crimson carpet inside its Grand Lobby, so grand it might match the Washington Monument laid on its aspect. They reached the eight-foot-tall bronze head of John F. Kennedy that lords over the corridor and seemed forlornly into his eyes.
How for much longer, one lady joked to the opposite, till the statue of the thirty fifth president will get torn down and changed with one of many forty seventh? They laughed bitterly.
It was simply final week that Mr. Trump introduced his plan to purge the Kennedy Middle’s board of its Biden appointees and to put in “a tremendous Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” He named considered one of his most fiercely loyal apparatchiks, Richard Grenell, interim president and proclaimed that there can be no extra “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA” proven. He complained about drag queens performing there and mentioned it had all turn out to be too “wokey.” Some artists canceled exhibits. “Welcome to the New Kennedy Middle!” Mr. Trump mentioned on social media, posting an A.I.-generated picture of himself waving his arms like a conductor in a live performance corridor.
Most people who turned up on the Kennedy Middle on Thursday night time to see performances in its varied theaters had bought their tickets lengthy earlier than any of that was set in movement. Now they discovered themselves at an arts middle on the cusp of turning into one thing completely different — one thing Trumpian.
Some speculated what that may appear to be.
“I really feel like we’d simply have ‘Cats’ on rotation shifting ahead,” mentioned Pamela Deutsch, a documentary movie producer who as soon as labored as an usher on the Kennedy Middle. (Mr. Trump, who as soon as had desires of turning into a Broadway producer, is a longtime fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber.) She was there to catch a set by the comedian W. Kamau Bell. So was Louis Woolard, a 73-year-old psychotherapist from Maryland. What kind of cultural programming did he envision below the creative stewardship of the forty seventh president? “I don’t know,” mentioned Mr. Woolard. “I suppose nation music.”
On the different finish of the Grand Lobby, American Ballet Theater was placing on a manufacturing of “Crime and Punishment,” an effort to make dance out of Dostoyevsky. A 75-year-old actual property funding banker named Wayne Koonce waited in line to have his ticket scanned. “Possibly the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi will likely be invited again now that he’s cozying as much as Putin,” he mentioned.
For the many individuals in liberal Washington scandalized by Mr. Trump’s takeover of the Kennedy Middle, Thursday night time was like a cross between a wake and final name. Drag performers protested outside in the cold, as college students from George Washington College marched round shouting about Mr. Trump. Inside, some well-heeled patrons of the ballet have been actually clutching their pearls as they contemplated the way forward for the establishment. On the different finish of the lobby, copies of a youngsters’s e book known as “Do the Work! An Antiracist Exercise E book” have been being bought forward of Mr. Bell’s stand-up routine. (He co-wrote the e book.)
“You recognize, Trump took over, he’s the brand new chairman of the Kennedy Middle,” he mentioned on the high of his set. The viewers set free a low boo. “You shouldn’t name it the Kennedy Middle anymore,” he mentioned. “Let’s name it the Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Middle.” Extra booing. “In case you’re going to have folks working it with no experience in any respect,” he continued, “you would possibly as effectively have it named after the man with no experience in any respect.” (Earlier that day, Mr. Kennedy had been confirmed as well being secretary.)
Mr. Bell tore into the president and talked about white supremacy, nationalized well being care, oligarchy, fascism, socialism, transgender rights, slavery, kale chips, Nazidom and different such subjects that might presumably qualify as “wokey” below new administration. The comedian additionally guessed at what kind of adjustments have been in retailer.
“What number of instances are you able to give Child Rock the Mark Twain award?” he questioned because the viewers groaned.
On a sofa outdoors the ballet, a husband and spouse — each academics from Arlington, Va. — tried to determine what the president meant by “anti-American propaganda.” “I can’t determine it out,” mentioned the spouse. “Immigrants,” steered the husband. “However what does that really imply?” requested the spouse.
Some fretted as to whether or not they must boycott the place going ahead. “Like lots of people in Washington,” mentioned Mr. Koonce, “we’re attempting to determine: Will we proceed to come back? You wish to help the artists, however you don’t wish to help something linked with this philistine, backward motion of the humanities, which is precisely what it’s going to be.”
A lot of what President Trump is as much as in Washington is about payback. He takes his revenge on a city that snubbed him. Final time he was president, some artists accepting the Kennedy Middle honors refused to go to the White Home, and in response he and Melania Trump by no means went to the Kennedy Middle.
Vice President JD Vance, and his spouse, Usha, although, appear to genuinely benefit from the Kennedy Middle’s programming. She has been a member of the opera’s board for greater than a yr, and the couple took their younger youngsters there in December for a production of “Jungle Book” that the Kennedy Middle described as being advised “by means of a recent lens by framing Mowgli as a refugee looking for security in a brand new setting.” (In different phrases, presumably wokey.) They loved it a lot they went backstage after it was over.
In Mr. Trump’s struggle in opposition to the city’s establishments, the battle over this one can appear low-stakes by comparability. What’s a performing arts middle in comparison with the Justice Division, trans-Atlantic alliances, international help and all the remainder? Nonetheless, it has struck a chord. Folks perambulating up the Grand Lobby on Thursday — lots of whom have been federal employees now fearing for his or her jobs — appeared particularly agitated by what was occurring there.
Michael Grey, a 63-year-old retired refugee officer who labored for the State Division starting below George H.W. Bush, was there to see the ballet. Requested what he thought concerning the president’s proclamation about anti-American propaganda, Mr. Grey mentioned, “I believe it’s nonsense.” However he was in a position to take the lengthy view.
“Issues come and so they go,” he mentioned, “however the arts don’t, and the love of the humanities doesn’t.”
