Bravo to the brave performing artists who have righteously refused to appear at Washington, D.C.’s, Kennedy Center in the weeks since President Trump added his name to the facade.
“There’s no way I would set foot in it now,” renowned composer Stephen Schwartz said in an email to Newsday.
“The Kennedy Center was founded to be an apolitical home for free artistic expression for artists of all nationalities and ideologies,” the Oscar- and Grammy-winning composer said in a statement.
“It is no longer apolitical, and appearing there has now become an ideological statement. “As long as that remains the case, I will not appear there.”
Schwartz is best known to this generation of fans for composing the score to “Wicked,” the wildly popular Broadway show that has found new life on the big screen.
”Wicked: For Good” is currently playing in movie theaters.
The film highlights, as “The Wizard of Oz” and “The Wiz” before it, the evil schemes of the man behind the curtain.
But “wicked” could just as easily describe the man behind the Oval Office door.
This wizard doesn’t even use a curtain. He knows no shame. We’ve said that every day since he has been in office, both this time and the last, yet he constantly manages to one-up himself.
Whether he is tearing down the East Wing of the White House for a ballroom monument to himself, or tearing down the nation’s legacy of diversity and civil rights, Trump, like the movie’s Wizard of Oz, has put himself above his constituents.
The latest example is Trump’s effort to hijack The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts.
The Kennedy Center, as it is more commonly known, opened in 1971 as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy, who was killed by an assassin’s bullet in 1963.
Schwartz attended the center’s opening.
Last year, Trump ditched the Kennedy Center’s existing board and installed a slate of loyalists to oversee the venue. Since then, the center has cut staff and reevaluated its programming.
But the last straw was when Trump added his name to the facade, like the performing arts center was one of his glitzy casino hotels.
Not only did Trump desecrate the center by adding his name. He gave himself top billing.
He put his name in front.
“It is beyond comprehension that this sitting president has sought to rename this great memorial dedicated to President Kennedy,” the slain president’s niece and former network news correspondent Maria Shriver wrote in an Instagram post. “It is beyond wild that he would think adding his name in front of President Kennedy’s name is acceptable. It is not.
“Next thing perhaps he will want to rename JFK Airport, rename the Lincoln Memorial, the Trump Lincoln Memorial. The Trump Jefferson Memorial. The Trump Smithsonian. The list goes on.”
Scholars said Trump’s move requires congressional approval, and ignores a law that explicitly prohibits the board of trustees from making the center into a memorial to anyone else.
“The Board shall assure that after December 2, 1983, no additional memorials or plaques in the nature of memorials shall be designated or installed in the public areas of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,” the U.S. code states.
Why do we stand for this?
Fortunately, some people are pushing back. In addition to Schwartz, other artists have canceled their concerts or refused to appear at the center.
That includes New York City-based dance company Doug Varone and Dancers, whose director, Doug Varone, said the company is losing money over the decision.
“Everyone in our organization from our board to our dancers to our staff all supported this decision,” Varone told CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront.” “I can’t imagine any artist wanting to step through those doors right now with his name on that building.”
Even George Steinbrenner knew enough not to put his name on Yankee Stadium.
