Broadway musical 'Hamilton' cancels plans to play the Kennedy Center in 2026
Entertainment
The show played the Kennedy Center in 2018 during Trump’s first administration and again in 2022
NEW YORK (AP) — The megahit Broadway musical “Hamilton” is pulling out of plans to perform at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., next year, citing President Donald Trump’s shakeup of the art institution’s leadership.
“Our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,” producer Jeffrey Seller said in a statement Wednesday.
Lin-Manuel Miranda’s hip-hop-flavored biography about the first U.S. treasury secretary, Alexander Hamilton, won the best new musical Tony Award, the Pulitzer Prize for drama, a Grammy and the Edward M. Kennedy Prize for Drama Inspired by American History. It also earned Miranda a MacArthur Foundation “genius” grant.
The show played the Kennedy Center in 2018 during Trump’s first administration and again in 2022 when Joe Biden was president. It was scheduled again March 3-April 26, 2026. Those plans are now off. Tickets had yet to go on sale.
“We are not acting against his administration, but against the partisan policies of the Kennedy Center as a result of his recent takeover,” said Seller. “These actions bring a new spirit of partisanship to the national treasure that is the Kennedy Center.”
