A list of events and shows canceled at the Kennedy Center
Actress and comedian Issa Rae was the first major artist to cancel since the Trump takeover.
Updated just now

Issa Rae attends the 2024 Fashion Awards at London's Royal Albert Hall in December. (Abaca Press/AP)
Issa Rae
‘Finn’
‘A Peacock Among Pigeons’
Louise Penny
Amanda Rheaume
Low Cut Connie
Alfred Street Baptist Church’s Christmas performance
By Samantha Chery
In response to President Donald Trump’s Kennedy Center takeover, actors, authors and other artists who were scheduled to hold events at Washington’s preeminent arts institution have begun backing out of scheduled appearances. The cancellation of some events, scrapped around the same time but unrelated to Trump’s actions, was also scrutinized by artists.
On Feb. 7, Trump announced plans to fire multiple Kennedy Center board members. By Wednesday, all of former president Joe Biden’s appointees had been replaced. The center’s new board of trustees then voted for Trump to head the board and ousted the center’s longtime president, Deborah Rutter, in favor of Trump ally Richard Grenell. ... The unprecedented actions sparked immediate blowback. Along with the cancellations, multiple prominent arts figures, including television producer Shonda Rhimes, who served as board treasurer, resigned from their positions.
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Alfred Street Baptist Church’s Christmas performance
The 207-year-old church announced Sunday that it would cancel its annual Christmas performance at the Kennedy Center in light of Trump’s shake-up. ... “We believe that the new leadership’s opposition to the Kennedy Center’s longstanding tradition of honoring artistic expression across all backgrounds is misaligned with our unwavering commission to proclaim and practice the transformative and redemptive love of Jesus, to pursue justice, to promote equality, to embrace the gift of diversity, and to care for all creation,” the church said in a prepared statement on its website.
The influential Northern Virginia church, which boasts over 10,000 members, is one of the oldest Black Baptist churches in the country. The Obamas have attended multiple services, and in 2015, Alfred Street donated $1 million to the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the largest donation the Smithsonian Institution has received from a faith-based organization.
Travis M. Andrews and Michael Andor Brodeur contributed to this report.