AILSA CHANG, HOST:
President Trump's rebranding of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts is not going as planned. Yesterday, staff at the Kennedy Center were told to remove Trump's name from the premises. Joining us now to talk about all this is NPR's Elizabeth Blair. Hi, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH BLAIR, BYLINE: Hello.
CHANG: Hello. OK, I know a lot of people in D.C. found it kind of strange in the first place to see President Trump's name added to the facade of the Kennedy Center last year. Explain why they are going to remove his name now.
BLAIR: The Kennedy Center was established by an act of Congress, and only Congress can authorize a change like that. This was part of a lawsuit by one of the center's ex officio board members, Representative Joyce Beatty. She said she was also denied an opportunity to vote on the name change. And a federal judge agreed with her. Judge Christopher Cooper said in his ruling that it was crystal clear the Kennedy Center was intended to be a living memorial to its namesake.
CHANG: OK, so has the president's name actually come off yet?
BLAIR: Not yet. The Kennedy Center's General Counsel sent a memo to staff yesterday saying they have until June 12 to remove Trump's name from any signage. So that includes the building, the logo, programs, email signatures. You know, ever since Trump took over the Kennedy Center a month into his second term, it has not been business as usual there.
CHANG: Yeah.
BLAIR: Major artists have canceled, and ticket sales have plummeted.
CHANG: Totally. I mean, at the same time, there's been, like, this pretty steady drumbeat to keep the Kennedy Center name - right? - and to make sure it continues its mission as the national cultural center.
BLAIR: There have been a lot of protests. At one point, Trump said he would end, quote, "woke programming." You had - Joan Baez, Jane Fonda, Maggie Rogers and others had chose the Kennedy Center as the place to stage a recent free speech rally. Artists from across the country, really across the globe, have performed at the Kennedy Center for decades. After Trump became board chair, lots of longtime staff were either fired or resigned, and those workers had deep relationships throughout the performing arts. So the ripple effects were significant.
CHANG: Indeed. OK, so the Kennedy Center is complying for now with the federal judge's ruling about removing Trump's name. But let me ask you, the president had said that the center would close for two years for renovations, right? So what did this judge say about that plan?
BLAIR: He didn't take issue with the need for renovations. He questioned the decision to close, but he didn't block it altogether. The judge said the plans for the work and the scope of the shutdown were, quote, "murky." The memo to Kennedy staff this week said the center is considering its options and will provide further guidance shortly.
CHANG: So what is next for the Kennedy Center? Like, do you think taking Trump's name off the building will change anything else?
BLAIR: It's really too soon to tell. Many of the big-name artists who canceled found other places in Washington to perform. Audiences have also found other places to see shows. I talked to Mallory Miller, who used to work in the Kennedy Center's dance department. She cofounded Hands Off the Arts, a group that has been protesting outside the Kennedy Center every Friday evening since Trump's name was added to the building. She said artists will come back if they feel safe performing there.
MALLORY MILLER: When Donald Trump decided to say that he was going to go after the woke programming, that inadvertently sent, like, a threat to a lot of different communities, and a lot of them are represented in the artists that came to the Kennedy Center.
BLAIR: And, really, a big criticism of Trump's takeover has been that people he put in place in leadership did not have arts experience and that that also really hurt the center.
CHANG: That is NPR's Elizabeth Blair. Thank you so much, Elizabeth.
BLAIR: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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