Democratic senators rent space at the Kennedy Center to host a Pride event

The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, April 2025. John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts hide caption

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John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

A group of Democratic senators and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller are hosting a Pride celebration at the Kennedy Center Monday evening. But the Kennedy Center has nothing to do with it.

Senators John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin have rented the Justice Forum, a small theater at the REACH, an expansion to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that opened in 2019.

While the group of senators booked the space a few weeks ago, the Pride event, called Love Is Love, was only announced on Monday. A statement from Sen. Hickenlooper's office says the event is "about standing up for the arts and the progress the LGBTQ community has made. The performance reminds us that our fight for equality — and for democracy — isn't over. It's happening right now." Directed by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, the show will include songs celebrating gay culture.

Seller, whose credits also include Rent and Avenue Q, told The New York Times, Hickenlooper called him to see if he'd like to engage in some "guerrilla theater." Seller, who is gay, didn't hesitate.

After President Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February, Seller and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda canceled a production of the touring show scheduled for the Center in 2026. At the time, Seller wrote on X, "The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national center represents."

Current Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell called the cancelation "a publicity stunt that will backfire." In a post on X, he wrote that Miranda "is intolerant of people who don't agree with him politically," and that Miranda and Seller "don't want Republicans going to their shows."

Seller told The New York Times that Monday night's show is "our way of reoccupying the Kennedy Center."

The Kennedy Center did not respond to NPR's request for comment.

Meanwhile, the White House has proposed a major increase to the Kennedy Center's federal funding, while funds to other cultural institutions have been severely cut. The request of nearly $257 million is "for necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures of the building and site of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts."