The chaos and confusion that have roiled the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts since President Donald Trump set it in his sights continues as the institution’s management said it won’t reschedule shows even though its proposed closure was blocked by a federal judge.
As reported by U.S. News & World Report, “Kennedy Center lawyers said the institution plans to ‘maintain an operational model’ after the July 5 date when it was initially scheduled to shutter for renovations.” But, per the lawyers’ filing on Friday, “the Court’s order did not affirmatively require the Board to reschedule programming that had previously been cancelled or to seek new programming”—meaning the Kennedy Center could be quiet in terms of public-facing events.
The Trump-aligned board of directors for the Kennedy Center voted in March to close the institution for two years for renovations. But in a ruling last month, U.S. District Judge Christopher Cooper blocked the closure, after which point the venue said management would present the board with different renovation options for a vote expected by mid-July. Among the options are a complete or partial closure that would allow “some continued public access and limited programming” and another that would “consider a highly limited series of phased closures to address only the Center’s most serious infrastructure needs while scheduling and maintaining a full slate of programming,” according to U.S. News & World Report.
Judge Cooper also ordered the removal of Trump’s name from the Kennedy Center’s facade, but the surface of the embattled building has been covered by a tarp in what one tart-tongued tourist recently described to the Washington Post as “the last gasp of a sore loser.”
