Class acts flooding back to Kennedy center after Trump-ectomy: report

OK Magazine Executive Editor Rob Shuter says big acts are once again eyeing a return to the embattled John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts now that President Donald Trump’s name mat soon be getting exorcised from the front of the building.

A federal judge recently ordered that Trump cannot rename the Kennedy Center, nor may he close it for what the Trump administration said were two years of renovations. And according to Shuter, big name artists are already chomping at the bit to raise the curtain. Leading the conversation, he said, are the producers of Hamilton.

“Hamilton would be the ultimate comeback,” one insider told Shuter. “It was the most high-profile withdrawal, and everyone knows what a return would symbolize.”

Shuter reports that the blockbuster musical famously “canceled its planned engagement amid the controversy surrounding the center’s leadership, becoming the most visible sign of the entertainment community’s backlash.”But it was not the only entertainer to pull out. Several actors, singers, bands, composers, comedians and other performers withdrew from show commitments after Trump insisted on plugging his name awkwardly before the name the building was constructed to eulogize. The president also made himself the chairman of the Kennedy Center board, fired several others on the board and replaced them with loyalists.

Artists soon abandoned the building en masse, and with a vacant lineup and empty seats Trump announced that the center would be closing for renovation. His announcement landed him merciless ridicule on social media.

But now, Shuter is pleased to report that “insiders say the mood is beginning to shift.” And it has everything to do with federal Judge Christopher Cooper’s recent Trump-ectomy of the building.

“A lot of artists never had a problem with the Kennedy Center itself,” Shuter reports another source close to the situation telling him. “Their issue was what it represented now under President Trump.”

Other big names now in discussion for return includes Issa Rae, Rhiannon Giddens, and Manuel Miranda, according to insiders. Additionally “several prominent arts organizations that previously pulled scheduled appearances.”

“There’s genuine interest in coming back,” another source told Shuter. “Many artists feel the Kennedy Center belongs to performers and audiences — not politicians.”

The way Shuter sees it, artists are seeing the return of the Kennedy Center as the victorious reclamation of art from a noxious cloud. He added that entertainment insiders expect “a wave of major bookings if the venue can restore stability and rebuild trust.”

“The first question everyone is asking is who returns first,” said another theater source to Shuter. “The second is whether Hamilton makes a triumphant comeback.”

“And in Washington, that could be the standing ovation everyone has been waiting for,” he said.