Crisis at the Kennedy Center: Why Its Main Building Is Going Dark for Two Years

Canning says the Center’s financial problems are unsurprising after a year of cancellations, diminished bookings, and litigation.

“Any claims that the Kennedy Center is in financial trouble, I believe,” she says, “but they’re all problems of their own manufacturing.”

Any future efforts to add Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center, in whatever form they may take, will almost certainly be challenged in court.

Even as that legal fight continues, however, the closure will not halt all of the Kennedy Center’s activities.

While the cultural center’s main building—which includes the Concert Hall, the Opera House, and the Eisenhower Theater—is closed, certain programming elements will continue at REACH, an indoor and outdoor campus expansion that opened in 2019. 

The center also said that it will still be “maintaining educational outreach to the community” and that it will continue presenting the Kennedy Center Honors and awarding the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor—even if those events take place offsite.