President Donald Trump’s brazen takeover of the Kennedy Center has led to the venue losing out on the major Broadway hit “Hamilton,” whose creators are pulling out of a scheduled run next year.
In a statement Wednesday, the musical’s producer, Jeffrey Seller, said Trump’s recent “purge” of staff and performances “flies in the face of everything this national cultural center represents.”
“Our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,” Seller said.
He pointed out that “Hamilton” had been performed at the center in 2018 during Trump’s first term and noted that the decision to pull performances was not a stance against the administration, but rather “against the partisan policies of the Kennedy Center as a result of his recent takeover.”
The award-winning musical sensation about Alexander Hamilton had been scheduled to run for several weeks next spring as part of the Kennedy Center’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
Lin-Manuel Miranda, the show’s creator, told The New York Times on Wednesday that Trump’s takeover of the organization “means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it.”
“The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center,” he said.
Seller told the Times that it was “untenable” for the “Hamilton” team to be involved with an institution that has become “so deeply politicized.”
“The Kennedy Center is for all of us, and it pains me deeply that they took it over and changed that,” he said. “They said it’s not for all of us. It’s just for Donald Trump and his crowd. So we made a decision we can’t do it.”
The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center.
Lin-Manuel MiraNDa, “HAMILTON” creator
A slew of artists have cut ties with the Kennedy Center in recent weeks. But the abrupt departure of “Hamilton” was not received well by the institution’s new interim president, Richard Grenell, whom Trump appointed after ousting Deborah Rutter, the center’s longtime president.
Grenell wrote in a post on X that Sellers and Miranda “first went to the New York Times before they came to the Kennedy Center with their announcement that they can’t be in the same room with Republicans.”
“The American people need to know that @Lin_Manuel is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically,” Grenell added.
However, the Trump administration has itself suggested that the takeover of the once-bipartisan institution was political in nature — saying that the Kennedy Center had gone “woke.”
“NO MORE DRAG SHOWS, OR OTHER ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA — ONLY THE BEST,” Trump posted on Truth Social last month.
CORRECTION (March 7, 2025, 1:28 p.m. ET): A previous version of this article misstated the subject of “Hamilton.” The musical is about Alexander Hamilton, not Andrew Hamilton.