The composer and lyricist of Fellow Travelers, an opera based mostly on Thomas Mallon’s 2007 novel in regards to the anti-gay lavender scare of the Fifties, have withdrawn the work from the 2025-26 season of the Washington National Opera at The Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., citing concern over Donald Trump’s takeover of the establishment’s management.
The withdrawal was confirmed by Tim O’Leary and Francesca Zambello, Washington National Opera General Director and Artistic Director, respectively. In a press release obtained by Deadline, O’Leary and Zambello stated, “We deeply regret that the creative team of Fellow Travelers has decided to deprive WNO audiences of the chance to experience this opera. Art and music have the power to rise above division and bring people together to find common ground. The WNO has long been a place for everyone to enjoy the power of the opera and it will remain a place for patrons of all backgrounds and beliefs.”
In a letter to the Washington National Opera obtained by The New York Times, the opera’s composer Gregory Spears and librettist Greg Pierce indicated that Trump’s takeover doesn’t uphold Fellow Travelers‘ values of “freedom and liberty for all people.” (Mallon’s novel was additionally tailored for tv in 2023, with Matt Bomer and Jonathan Bailey starring within the Showtime miniseries).
The Times quotes the Spears-Pierce letter as saying: “We have made the impossibly difficult decision that the Kennedy Center is not a place the team feels comfortable having the work presented.”
Fellow Travelers will probably be changed on the Kennedy Center line-up with a brand new manufacturing of Robert Ward’s opera The Crucible.
The withdrawal is the most recent high-profile voluntary protest cancelation on the Kennedy Center in latest weeks. The producers of Hamilton pulled out of a staging subsequent 12 months, and comic Issa Rae canceled an look, whereas Ben Folds and Renee Fleming withdrew as Kennedy Center advisers. In a 26-show listing of complete cancelations put out by the Kennedy Center earlier this month, the middle notes that the majority have been canceled by the artist or artist availability, or by the producers. Four reveals since Trump’s official takeover on February 12, in keeping with the middle, had been canceled for low ticket gross sales or for monetary causes, and two had been postponed.
Two of probably the most headline-making cancelations – of the Kennedy Center’s upcoming tour of the youngsters’s musical Finn, which could be learn as a metaphor for LGBTQ+ delight and self-acceptance, and a May symphony and refrain efficiency celebrating 50 years of Pride, had been pulled by the Kennedy Center both after the Trump takeover or within the days main as much as it. Kennedy Center officers have stated the cancelations had been monetary choices.
Another canceled mission, Jonathan Spector’s Eureka Day, is a latest Broadway comedy that facilities on a non-public faculty grappling with an outbreak of the mumps, as dad and mom and directors weigh what to do amid the anti-vaccination motion. It is listed on the Kennedy Center’s roster as being canceled by the producer as a consequence of “financial reasons.” (A consultant for the play has informed Deadline that Eureka Day producers would don’t have any further remark.)
Many within the inventive group, together with artists related to a few of the canceled reveals, have publicly expressed doubt in regards to the Center’s explanations, significantly in gentle of Trump’s repeated exhortations to get rid of “woke” programming on the beloved arts establishment.
In yet one more growth on the Kennedy Center, the Daily Wire reported yesterday that Kennedy Center Chief Financial Officer Donna Arduin despatched a letter to Kennedy Center workers saying that the insitution was $40 million in debt and can quickly start “reducing expenses” to handle its “difficult” monetary scenario.
The Daily Wire posted a watermarked copy of Arduin’s letter on X, drawing a response from Richard Grenell, the Kennedy Center’s interim government director appointed by Trump.
“True,” Grenell wrote on X. “But we have a path forward. It starts with cutting executive pay and downsizing the staff where possible.” He provides, “We must also have commonsense programming that the general public will support. The Kennedy Center should be the premiere Arts institution in the country – welcoming everyone.”
It’s price noting that the canceled Finn tour adopted a sold-out engagement on the Kennedy Center.