“Hamilton,” the musical theater juggernaut about the birth of American democracy, is canceling plans to perform next year at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, citing President Trump’s moves to impose his ideological and cultural values on the long-cherished venue.
The musical had been slated to be part of the Kennedy Center’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. But after Mr. Trump ousted the Democratic members from the center’s once-bipartisan board, became its chairman and replaced its president, “Hamilton” decided not to come.
“This latest action by Trump means it’s not the Kennedy Center as we knew it,” the show’s creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda, said in a joint interview on Wednesday with its lead producer, Jeffrey Seller. “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. We’re just not going to be part of it.”
Mr. Seller said the “Hamilton” team believed that Mr. Trump “took away our national arts center for all of us.”
“It became untenable for us to participate in an organization that had become so deeply politicized,” he said. “The Kennedy Center is for all of us, and it pains me deeply that they took it over and changed that. They said it’s not for all of us. It’s just for Donald Trump and his crowd. So we made a decision we can’t do it.”
A spokesman for the Kennedy Center said that he had no immediate comment.
The decision takes “Hamilton,” the hugely popular retelling of the nation’s founding, out of the Kennedy Center’s plans to celebrate the 250th anniversary of American independence — which President Trump has made a priority of commemorating. Although the Kennedy Center had last year announced that “Hamilton” would be staged there in 2026 as part of those celebrations, it had not yet put tickets on sale, and no contract had been signed. Mr. Miranda and Mr. Seller said the show would soon announce another venue in the Washington area so those hoping to see the show in that region would still have an opportunity to do so.