Get the latest gossip
To Perform or Not to Perform at Trump’s Kennedy Center
Ahead of the organization’s big Mark Twain Prize ceremony, A-listers and working artists are struggling to make the right call.
Roughly 630 feet away from the center’s concert hall, on the Millennium Stage located at the opposite end of the long, red-carpeted Grand Foyer, folk musicians Nora Brown and Stephanie Coleman paused a half-hour into their set to display a pair of signs. The most high-profile example of Trump resistance within the walls of the arts institution — which he deemed “in such bad shape” during a tour earlier this week — could come Sunday evening, when the Kennedy Center’s annual Mark Twain Prize for American Humor is presented to recurring Oscar host Conan O’Brien during a ceremony that, for the second consecutive year, will later be streamed on Netflix. But he did not shy away from making jokes about the current president while hosting this year’s Academy Awards, where he explained Best Picture winner Anora ’s popularity by saying, “I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian.” Previous Twain proceedings have included commentary on sitting administrations.
Or read this on VULTURE
