Theatre is political. But with an evolving U.S. administration, it feels more like a battlefield than ever.
The President’s arrival back in the White House has sent a chill through the world of the arts. His new appointments to the Kennedy Center board prompt some pressing questions. Can the institution continue to be politically neutral? Or will it become just another front in America’s widening culture wars?
These appointments are not symbolic. The Kennedy Center is the public face of federally subsidized performing arts in the United States. Whoever determines its vision holds influence over funding, programming, and institutional priorities. With a board more ideologically in line with Trump, what becomes of the sort of theatre that questions authority?
A Familiar Threat
This is far from the first time that political authority has imperiled the arts. In the McCarthy era, artists were blacklisted due to their affiliations. The Reagan White House gutted National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funding, contending that taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be utilized to subsidize “controversial” work. And in 2017, The President suggested abolishing the NEA altogether—a historical first.
British theatre critic Michael Billington once stated, “Theatre is a nation talking to itself.” What happens, though, when a government gets to dictate whose voice is going to be heard?
The Battle for Funding
Federal funding for the arts is once again in the crosshairs. Trump’s first term was filled with regular attacks on the NEA, and his allies have long maintained that the government has no business subsidizing art. “We can’t afford to pay for things that offend our values,” former Republican congressman Jim Jordan said during a 2019 debate on the NEA budget.
Yet the numbers do not lie. The U.S. allocates less than 0.004% of its federal budget to the NEA—chump change as compared to France’s, Germany’s, or South Korea’s arts budgets. Might be obvious to point out, but Countries that prioritize cultural funding tend to see stronger creative economies. The United Kingdom’s Arts Council, for all its funding crises, continues to subsidize a healthy theatre ecosystem.
The threat isn’t so much in defunding, however—it’s in dictating where money goes. When funding is made conditional on politics, voices of dissent will be quieted.
Theatre as Resistance
We learn from history that theatre flourishes in the face of oppression. Franco’s Spain spawned subversive allegorical plays under censorship. Soviet writers sneaked criticism past the censors in coded measures. This administration’s first term saw Broadway response in What the Constitution Means to Me and The Inheritance, two uncompromisingly political plays.
We’re undergoing a renaissance of protest theater. Martyna Majok’s Sanctuary City had new urgency in 2024 as immigration policies hardened. Suzan-Lori Parks’ Plays for the Plague Year recorded the pandemic’s political failures. Off-Broadway and regional theaters continue to fight back, even in economic uncertainty.
Theatre is there to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed,” Bertolt Brecht once said. If so, the next few years will be an era for daring, experimental theatre—if it can survive.
The International Reaction
The political situation in America influences the way its theatre is received abroad. During the administration’s first term, there were some foreign festivals that were reluctant to present American work as some artists had to contend with visa rejections.
Will we return to such isolation? Perhaps. In 2017, the Edinburgh Fringe suffered from a reduction in U.S. productions due to travel bans. European theatre critics feared an inward-looking American scene. If funding were to dry up and the government turn against incisive art, such global collaborations would be threatened.
The Kennedy Center’s Crossroads
Kennedy Center’s future seems to largely hinge on the its new board appointees. They will determine programming, partnerships, and fundraising efforts. Will they encourage free artistic expression? Or will they advance an agenda consistent with the President’s cultural agenda?
“If the Kennedy Center starts to operate as a mouthpiece for government propaganda instead of an open public forum for artistic expression, something essential is lost,” cautions American theatre scholar Jill Dolan. The institution’s mission is to uplift a wide range of voices. If it falls down on that responsibility, independent theatres will be the ones left to carry the torch for politically difficult work.
The Future of American Theatre
Theater will survive—it always does. However, the coming four years will test its strength. Will artists have to censor themselves to receive funding? Could international collaborations with artists be undermined? And will institutions like the Kennedy Center hold fast to their mission, or succumb to political pressure?
One thing is certain: the stage has never been more relevant. In a time of crisis, people turn to art to find the truth. And despite political interference, despite budget cuts, despite ideological battles, theatre will continue to speak. The question is—who will be listening?
