Picture--Kennedy Center auditorium almost completely empty:

[tblue37]

Unsparing, excellent work from the paper that keeps on reporting no matter what's going on at the opinion page. Gift link 🎁 wapo.st/4hxOdFo

— Jill Lawrence (@jilldlawrence.bsky.social) 2025-10-31T19:52:40.161Z

[dem4decades]

1. Trump fans are there, all at the keg getting a beer.

[tblue37]

2. ETTD.

[surfered]

3. Not unexpected..

[Bayard]

4. Everything trump touches, dies

[usonian]

5. Follow the links.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/entertainment/2025/10/31/kennedy-center-sales/
https://archive.ph/t4b2z



Kennedy Center ticket sales have plummeted since Trump takeover
Nearly nine months into the president’s oversight, sales for orchestra, theater and dance performances are the worst they’ve been since the pandemic, according to a Washington Post analysis.


After President Donald Trump took over the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in February, he and the executive he put in charge repeatedly accused the institution’s former leadership of not doing the very thing they are responsible for: selling tickets.

“We had spent way too much on programming that doesn’t bring in any revenue,” Richard Grenell, a Trump ally and former ambassador to Germany, told the Washington Reporter, a conservative media outlet, in late March. According to Grenell, the center hadn’t been making money. It was too woke and niche. The new team was, in Trump’s words, going to make it “hot” again.

[Cha]

10. Kennedy Center is FULL of

Gaslit Bullshit now.

[Klarkashton]

6. That's great news!!!!

Brings a smile to my face.

[Cha]

11. Good ol Schadenfreude For when

the Nazis took over it's not doing so hot.

[Klarkashton]

12. I hope that he feels really insulted.

[Diamond_Dog]

7. Will wrestling matches be in its future?

[Celerity]

8. more pics and info

[Klarkashton]

14. That's mid performance too.

That's unsustainable..

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

15. What narcassistic president needs to stick his orange face everywhere?

[Blue Owl]

9. I hope the National Symphony can find an alternate venue to perform at

The resident arts organizations themselves shouldn’t have to suffer because of the artless Great Fatsby.

Joe and Barack should invest in an abandoned venue in the DC area and call it the “Biden-Obama Arts Center” and they should move there.

[BlueWaveNeverEnd]

13. More performers than audience

[tanyev]

16. The Trumpery Center.

😒

[usonian]

17. Maybe they can perform Professor Peter Schickele's music.

Last edited Mon Nov 3, 2025, 03:03 AM - Edit history (1)

Or the anvil chorus without the orchestra and chorus.


Anvil Chorus from Il Traditore.

Or (the late) Gallagher.

[generalbetrayus]

18. Um, I saw a P. D. Q. performance at the Kennedy Center back in the early 70s,

not long after it opened. It was hilarious and well-attended.

[usonian]

20. I was going to link a video of his concerto of piano versus orchestra.

But it's WAY too classy for the Trump/Epstein mud wrestling center!!!

I found one with the Boston Pops and the immortal Arthur Fiedler. It was actually a little slapstick for me. I got my piano humor from Victor Borge and Leonid Hambro, who could have fun with the classics and also perform at a high level.

I grew up with the Pops. I know every Leroy Anderson piece, which Fiedler loved. Anderson went to Harvard ,a Cambridge "kid"!!

A bit less classical, Chico Marx. Interestingly Lee Liberace, for all the showboating, was really good. I heard a recording of his Tchaikovsky 1st. Concerto, and he nailed it.

[progressoid]

22. I still have his album. "The Wurst of P.D.Q. Bach"

[generalbetrayus]

24. Iphigenia in Brooklyn from his first album has to be one of the most hilarious musical satires I have ever heard.

♫ Only he who is running, running, running knows. ♫

ttps://

&list=RDnLvCVRuZZgY&start_radio=1

[progressoid]

25. The use of double reeds without the use of oboes and bassoons.

I kind of forgot about that!

I used to have that record too. I bought it while in high school so a lot of the humor escaped me at the time. A few years ago, I had to downsize my LP collection and it went away (insert regret emoji here).

I wonder how the musicians felt while performing it.

[generalbetrayus]

29. I was in high school, too, when my sister bought it. I played French Horn in my high school band

and I recognized the brass instrument mouthpieces that are featured along with the oboe mouthpieces. When I saw the performance at the Kennedy Center, the musicians appeared to be thoroughly enjoying themselves. It actually takes talent to play bad music and play badly on a repeated basis.

[TommyT139]

26. A Gallagher tribute show

...but instead of watermelons(?) pumpkins!

[NJCher]

19. Great job to the Washington Post researchers

The entire article is worth reading. There are many laughs along the way. I kept laughing at Grenell's comments about how they were going to have "common sense" management.

What is it about "common sense" and arts management in the same sentence that is like nails on a chalkboard?

If you read the article, be sure to check out the comments. Funny stuff.

[usonian]

21. 4121 comments?

Ha. Sounds like nobody cares.

[progressoid]

23. My kid's Jr High band concerts were better attended.

[Kid Berwyn]

27. You can only watch Leni Riefenstahl so many times.

They’re really big on “Triumph of the Will,” though. Ja, ja.

[Irish_Dem]

28. The point was to kill the arts and the Kennedy brand.