In Monday’s (3/16) CNN, Betsy Klein reports, “President Donald Trump’s handpicked Kennedy Center board of trustees voted Monday to close the storied performing arts institution for two years for renovations…. Trump announced the planned closure earlier this year…. Democratic Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex-officio member who’s filed a lawsuit against Trump and the board, said she expressed ‘strong opposition’ during the meeting to any closure in the absence of congressional approval…. Beatty’s lawsuit … cites sworn declarations from multiple performing arts experts who warn about major impacts … ‘In my professional judgment, the harms from a closure of the Kennedy Center at the scale and on the timeline announced are severe, immediate, and cannot be quickly reversed,’ Deborah Borda, the president emerita of the New York Philharmonic, said in her sworn declaration. ‘The visiting performers who are removed from the schedule will find alternative venues and will not return quickly. The staff who depart will be difficult to replace. The donors who redirect their giving will develop new institutional loyalties. The audiences who fall out of the habit of attending will … require years of effort and investment to recover,’ added Borda, who’s overseen major renovations and construction at multiple major venues, including the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles and David Geffen Hall in New York City.” What the closure means for the National Symphony Orchestra, the long-time resident orchestra at the Kennedy Center, has not been revealed.
