The leadership of the Kennedy Center has accused the producers and creator of Hamilton of staging a “publicity stunt” and canceling the Broadway musical’s third performance to protest President Donald Trump’s recent takeover of the institution.
The Center’s Interim Director Ric Grenell warned that the shows creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, 45, and producer Jeffrey Seller’s decision to cancel the slated shows in March and April 2026 will eventually “backfire.”
On Wednesday, Seller, 61, announced the change, explaining that “in recent weeks we have sadly seen decades of Kennedy Center neutrality be destroyed.”
ADVERTISEMENT
Grenell, a Trump administration official, took to X to slam the decision.
“Let’s be clear on the facts. Seller and [Miranda] first went to the New York Times before they came to the Kennedy Center with their announcement that they can’t be in the same room with Republicans,” Grenell, who serves as Trump’s envoy for special missions, wrote. “This is a publicity stunt that will backfire.”
According to Grenell, 58, Hamilton leadership clearly “don’t want Republicans” at any of their shows, adding: “The Arts are for everyone–not just for the people who Lin likes and agrees with.”
The disgruntled Trump official went on to suggest that Miranda “is intolerant of people who don’t agree with him politically. It’s clear he and Sellers [sic] don’t want Republicans going to their shows.”
Then came the final blow: “Americans see you, Lin.”
The 11-time Tony Award-winning musical that chronicles the life of one of America’s founding fathers Alexander Hamilton, broke numerous stereotypes by featuring a predominantly non-white cast to portray white historical figures.
“I really think a large part of me writing musicals was sort of trying to create the parts I’d like to see for myself,” Miranda told ABC News in 2016 when the show first started.
Despite Grenell’s inability to understand the decision, Miranda made his motivations crystal clear in his New York Times interview on Wednesday, saying “[I]t’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it.”
“The Kennedy Center was not created in this spirit, and we’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center,” he added. “We’re just not going to be part of it.”
Seller’s statement made on behalf of the entire production reflected Miranda’s as he pointed out how institutions like the Kennedy Center are “sacred” and should “be protected from politics.”
“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 cultural center represents,” he wrote in a statement posted to X.
