In a move that’s ignited controversy and concern, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has quietly canceled an entire week of scheduled World Pride events, pulling the plug on LGBTQ+ performances and celebrations that were set to take place this June. The cancellations follow a swift and sweeping leadership change: President Donald Trump fired the center’s president and chairman in February, replaced the board with loyalists, and was then elected chairman of the Kennedy Center himself.
What was once a flagship cultural partnership — a vibrant, inclusive celebration of LGBTQ+ artistry called Tapestry of Pride — has now unraveled in silence.
The Kennedy Center has made no formal announcement and has not responded to requests for comment. On its website, the event is still vaguely listed, but all meaningful details are gone. Behind the scenes, artists and organizers say they were simply ghosted.
One of those artists is Michael Roest, director of the International Pride Orchestra, who spent months planning a June 5 performance at the center. After Trump’s public comments about transforming Kennedy Center programming, Roest says communication with the institution abruptly ceased. He later received a single-line email informing him his contract would not be advanced. No explanation. No follow-up.
“They went from very eager to host to nothing,” Roest said. “We have not since heard a word.” The performance has since been moved to Strathmore Theater in nearby Bethesda, Maryland.
Other events, including drag story time and a display from the AIDS Memorial Quilt, have been relocated to World Pride’s welcome center in D.C.’s Chinatown.
For the Capital Pride Alliance, the group organizing World Pride, the message was clear enough: they’re moving on without the Kennedy Center. “We are a resilient community,” said deputy director June Crenshaw, “but the fact that we have to maneuver in this way is disappointing.”
That disappointment runs deep. Monica Alford, who helped organize the Kennedy Center’s first drag brunch and was slated to run a family-friendly event as part of this year’s Pride schedule, said the loss of partnership feels personal. “It was a safe space for the queer community,” she said. “We’re doing our community a disservice — not just the queer community but the entire community.”
These aren’t isolated voices. They represent a broader concern: that under Trump’s watch, the Kennedy Center — long a beacon of American cultural expression — is shifting from a platform of inclusivity to a tool of political messaging.
The absence of transparency only fuels those fears. What changed so suddenly? Why cancel confirmed events so close to their execution date? Why the silence?
While no direct statement has confirmed the reason, the correlation between Trump’s takeover and the rapid cancellation of Pride programming is impossible to ignore. And for many artists, that silence is deafening.
Roest and others now consider the Kennedy Center a “hostile performance space.” And unless the new board makes a very public and unequivocal statement of inclusivity, he says, his orchestra won’t be returning. Nor, he suspects, will many other LGBTQ+ artists.
