<\/p>\n
\n\tWicked<\/a> <\/em>composer Stephen Schwartz<\/a> has vowed not to appear at the Kennedy Center<\/a> after its renaming and takeover by President Donald Trump.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tIn a statement, Schwartz, who notes he was part of the opening event at the Kennedy Center, said the institution is \u201cno longer apolitical\u201d and that he will not appear there, \u201cas long as that remains the case.\u201d The composer told The New York Times<\/a><\/em> that he had been asked to host a gala event for the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center in May.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cI was part of the event that opened the Kennedy Center in 1971, the Bernstein Mass<\/em>. The Kennedy Center was founded to be an apolitical home for free expression for artists of all nationalities and ideologies. It is no longer apolitical, and appearing there now has become a kind of ideological statement.\u00a0 As long as that remains the case, I will not appear there,\u201d Schwartz said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tSchwartz, who also penned new songs for the Wicked<\/em> films, as well as the stage shows Pippin<\/em> and Godspell<\/em>, did note that he had last spoken to the opera about hosting the gala about a year ago. Last February, Trump named himself as chair of the cultural institution and fired some board members<\/a>, with others resigning. In December, the board, appointed by Trump, voted to change <\/a>the name to the Trump Kennedy Center. His name was added<\/a> to the front of the building shortly thereafter.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tWhile the Times<\/em><\/a> reported that Schwartz\u2019s name has been advertised in connection with the event and was the host per the National Opera, Richard Grenell, the president of the Kennedy Center, disputed that he was still the intended host. In a post on X<\/a>, he called the reports \u201cbogus\u201d and said that Schwartz \u201cwas never signed and I\u2019ve never had a single conversation on him since arriving.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Wicked composer Stephen Schwartz has vowed not to appear at the Kennedy Center after its renaming and takeover by President Donald Trump.\u00a0 In a statement, Schwartz, who notes he was part of the opening event at the Kennedy Center, said the institution is \u201cno longer apolitical\u201d and that he will not appear there, \u201cas long […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4243,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[538,4068,1155,4069,2924,4070,355],"class_list":{"0":"post-4242","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-fashion","8":"tag-center","9":"tag-composer","10":"tag-kennedy","11":"tag-schwartz","12":"tag-stephen","13":"tag-vows","14":"tag-wicked"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4242"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4244,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4242\/revisions\/4244"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tmbglobal.news\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}