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Hey, first things first: The Bulwark is coming to Texas for a couple of live shows, first at the Texas Theatre in Dallas on March 18 and then at the Paramount Theatre in Austin on March 19. I’ll be onstage at the Dallas show for sure and will likely be lurking on the edges of the Austin show if not on the stage itself.
The Dallas show is at the Texas Theatre, which is this very cool, old-school, cavernous movie theater/event space. (It’s where I saw Francis Ford Coppola present Megalopolis last year!) And it has some historical resonance, as it’s the theater that Lee Harvey Oswald fled to after killing JFK. I could not possibly be more excited to be part of a show at that venue; it’s going to be incredibly fun. Buy your tickets today!
One Last Day at the Kennedy Center
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LAST WEEKEND I POPPED INTO D.C. for twenty hours to take in a day’s worth of shows at the Kennedy Center. It was a slightly surreal experience—like saying farewell to an old friend—made all the more surreal by what happened when I put on the winter clothes I’d brought with me but rarely get to use at my new home in Dallas.
Shrugging into my heavy Schott Bros. peacoat as I exited the Watergate Hotel on my way over to the Kennedy Center, I felt something jostle against my chest. Reaching into the inside pocket, I pulled out a Kennedy Center ticket. For a show dated December 2019. “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus: The Musical,” as it happens, which was the last I saw at the Kennedy Center and a nice little pre-Christmas, pre-cross-country-move treat for my (then-4-year-old) daughter.
It was a reminder of a different time: For all the weirdness that surrounded Donald Trump’s first term, the Kennedy Center more or less remained above the fray. The touring troupe of Hamilton performed there in 2018, unlike this time around. That was the same year Philip Glass, who just withdrew his symphony honoring Abraham Lincoln, received the Kennedy Center Honor. And, of course, Mo Willems brought his cherished pigeon to masses of delighted DMV-area children while serving as artist-in-residence beginning in 2019.
As I document in a big piece I wrote for The Bulwark homepage this week, all that has changed, obviously: Trump took a personal interest in the activities of the Kennedy Center. He installed his crony Richard Grenell at the center along with a handpicked board of flunkies, which led to the calamitous decision to slap Trump’s name on the front of the building, which in turn added to the series of defections by performers and an exodus of patrons vexed by the desecration. The Washington National Opera announced it was leaving, dealing another blow to the beleaguered center. This in turn led Trump to petulantly announce that the Kennedy Center would be closed for two years—can’t have disappointing sales if you don’t have any disappointing shows to sell for—for “renovations.”
Anyway, I hope you give the piece below a read. And if you have any memories of the shows you saw at the Kennedy Center that you want to share, please do so in the comments, I know folks would love to hear about them.
Also, if you haven’t yet become a Bulwark+ member, please consider taking the leap. Can’t afford publish pieces like this without the generous support of our members.
