The hit Broadway musical Hamilton canceled a planned 2026 run at the Kennedy Center on Wednesday, citing the firing of the theater’s board and chairman and subsequent takeover by President Donald Trump.
“Politics have never affected the presentation of thousands of shows and the display of extraordinary visual arts,” Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller said in a statement.
“However, in recent weeks we have sadly seen decades of Kennedy Center neutrality be destroyed,” he added. “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.”
The show previously ran at the Kennedy Center twice — first in 2018, during Trump’s first administration, and again in 2022. The upcoming showing would’ve been the third such run at the Washington, D.C., theater, but Seller said that the erosion of the theater’s independence caused the show to reassess its plans.
“We are not acting against [Trump’s] administration, but against the partisan policies of the Kennedy Center as a result of his recent takeover,” Seller said.
Hamilton was initially scheduled to run from March 3, 2026, to April 26, 2026.
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