The show will not go on for “Hamilton” at the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts.
The lead producer of the long-running Broadway hit announced its upcoming run, scheduled for March 3 to April 26, 2026, has been canceled.
Citing President Trump’s massive overhaul of the prestigious Washington, D.C. venue, Jeffrey Seller officially called off the return of the award-winning musical, which played sold out Kennedy Center runs in 2018 and 2022.
“Given these recent actions, 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 in a statement issued Wednesday. “We are not acting against his administration, but against the partisan policies of the Kennedy Center as a result of his recent takeover.”
Within weeks of his presidential inauguration, Trump terminated bipartisan Kennedy Center board members and installed his own — including “God Bless the USA” singer Lee Greenwood, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wile, and Usha Vance, the wife of Vice President JD Vance — who then “unanimously elected” Trump as chairman.
In his effort to combat what he called “woke” and “terrible” programming at the Kennedy Center, the MAGA leader said he would fire anyone who does not share his “Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”
“We took over the Kennedy Center,” Trump gloated to reporters about his takeover. “We didn’t like what they were showing and various other things.”
Taking a preemptive stance, Seller stated that part of the decision to call off the run was business-related, as “it would simply be financially and personally devastating to the hundreds of employees of ‘Hamilton’ if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly canceled or renegotiated our engagement.”
Kennedy Center interim President Richard Grenell, Trump’s longtime foreign policy adviser, hit back at the cancellation, dismissing it as “a publicity stunt that will backfire.”
“The arts are for everyone – not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with,” he tweeted, referring to “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda. “The American people need to know that [he] is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically. It’s clear he and Sellers don’t want Republicans going to their shows.”
In response, Miranda stood his ground in a statement obtained The Daily News.
“The Kennedy Center has long been an artistic center historically devoid of a political point of view, with programming agnostic to the policy shifts of the times,” he said. “At its heart, ‘Hamilton’ celebrates American diversity. The recent shift in the Kennedy Center’s ideology and board leadership has made it untenable for a production like ‘Hamilton’ to celebrate and be celebrated there today.”