‘Hamilton’ Takes Its Shot at The Kennedy Center

A couple of weeks ago, we wondered what would appear at The Kennedy Center For the Performing Arts now that Donald Trump has made himself chairman of the board. As of yesterday, we know at least part of the answer: not ‘Hamilton‘.

A statement from Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller. pic.twitter.com/yTLlrzFAHW

— Hamilton (@HamiltonMusical) March 5, 2025

As Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller wrote on X, the firing of several prominent Kennedy Center officials and board members, as well as the “cancellation of important programming” means that “our show cannot, in good conscience, continue.”

Such is politics. But Seller’s statement contained this curious bit. This is primarily a “business decision,” he said. “It would simply be financially and personally devastating to the hundreds of employees of Hamilton if the new leadership of the Kennedy Center suddenly cancelled or re-negotiated our engagement.” The fact that there wasn’t even a sniff of such a thing happening didn’t seem to occur to him. The Hamilton producers are the ones who denied hundreds of employees six weeks of good guaranteed income, not the Kennedy Center.

Kennedy Center President Richard Grenell, a former director of national intelligence, didn’t waste time in responding to Seller, and to ‘Hamilton’ creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, calling their pulling of the show “a publicity stunt that will backfire.”

Let’s be clear on the facts.

Seller and @Lin_Manuel first went to the New York Times before they came to the Kennedy Center with their announcement that they can’t be in the same room with Republicans.

This is a publicity stunt that will backfire.

The Arts are for everyone -… https://t.co/K56LjofULp

— Richard Grenell (@RichardGrenell) March 5, 2025

Grenell continued, basically accusing Miranda of being a Democratic operative, an accusation that’s not a huge stretch: “The arts are for everyone,” he wrote, “not just for the people Lin likes and agrees with. he American people need to know that @Lin_Manuel 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. Americans see you, Lin.”

It was only a matter of time before the tension surrounding changes at the Kennedy Center reached a high-profile flashpoint. Other artists  involved with The Kennedy Center, such as musician Ben Folds and opera singer Renée Fleming, have resigned their advisory posts, and several musical and comedy acts have backed out of their performing commitments. But none are as high-profile as Miranda, who, with ‘Hamilton,’ became an American icon, a status cemented by two Academy Award nominations and a Pulitzer Prize.

Seller, in his statement, called the Kennedy Center a “sacred” setting that should be “protected from politics.” Yet by making such a statement, he and Miranda did the opposite of protecting the Kennedy Center; they poisoned the well. You could well argue that Trump, like Han Solo, fired first by cleaning house and putting in his own people. But if he laid out the bait, then the ‘Hamilton’ entourage jumped on it like mice on a juicy square of Swiss, falling right into the trap. They’re not standing up for anything. It’s performative resistance.

This was not a sick burn, or even a particularly strong move by Hamilton, Inc., a cultural product that continues to generate revenue, but is clearly long past its sell-by date. A hip-hop-lite musical version of American history with a cast of color playing the Founding Fathers doing battle with a gay King George III, ‘Hamilton’ is a clear product of the Obama era. When it came out, it felt fresh, electrifying, and revelatory, and interested a whole generation in American history in a way that stuffy school textbooks couldn’t. Appealing to a broad ideological and cultural swath of Americans, it was a public service, and a genuine cultural phenomenon.

But its cultural footprint work is done. Though it continues to play to audiences that hum its hits, ‘Hamilton’ is now every bit the corny relic of its era as ‘Hair’ was to the 60s, a simulacrum of a time and place that was never as great as we thought it was. At this point, ‘Hamilton’ is about as relevant a cultural force as ‘Bye Bye Birdie,’ and if its caretakers aren’t careful, the franchise will soon retreat to community-theater and high-school spring musical status.

A vibe shift is upon us. It’s not yet entirely clear what that will entail, culturally. The Trump-promised “Golden Era” of American culture is far from certain. But the showy ‘Hamilton’ diss of The Kennedy Center, which they announced in The New York Times instead of in direct negotiations, shows an instinct to move against the prevailing winds in a manner that feels petty and reflexively rebellious without being actually countercultural. There’s no way to tell what sort of production will insert into the six weeks at the Kennedy Center that ‘Hamilton’ just vacated in the most public way possible. But whoever or whatever it is, unlike Lin-Manuel Miranda, they’re not going to miss their shot.