Stephen Schwartz Won’t ‘Set Foot’ in the Trump-Kennedy Center

Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz is the latest artist to cancel their previously scheduled appearance at the Kennedy Center, now that it’s been renamed (sigh) the Trump-Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. In an email to Newsday, Schwartz said he was canceling his scheduled gig hosting the Washington National Opera Gala on May 16. With its new name, the Center “no longer represents the apolitical place for free artistic expression it was founded to be,” he writes. “There’s no way I would set foot in it now.”

The TKC’s VP of PR, Roma Daravi, is going with the always mature We Didn’t Want You Anyway response to Schwartz. “Stephen Schwartz was never discussed nor confirmed and never had a contract by current Trump Kennedy Center leadership,” Daravi said, per Rolling Stone. “Schwartz said himself that he ‘heard nothing about it since February 2025…assumed it’s no longer happening.’ It is completely false to report otherwise.”

Even before the potentially illegal name change, artists were canceling on the Kennedy Center left and right. Well, really more left and left. The Hamilton 10-year anniversary bailed, as did Issa Rae, Rhiannon Giddens, and the opera Fellow Travelers. After the name change, musician Chuck Redd canceled the annual Christmas Eve Jazz Jam. Now, the Kennedy Center is threatening to sue Redd for damages. Because that’s what Christmas is all about, no?