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    Democrats to Protest Trump’s Takeover of Kennedy Center With Pride Event

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    “This is our way of reoccupying the Kennedy Center,” said Jeffrey Seller of “Hamilton,” who was asked to stage the invite-only concert hosted by five senators.Five Democratic senators have rented a small theater at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and invited the producer of “Hamilton” to stage a gay pride concert there as a form of symbolic protest against President Trump’s takeover of the institution.The event, scheduled to take place on Monday night before an invited audience, will feature Broadway artists performing songs and readings. The concert, hosted by Senator John Hickenlooper of Colorado, is being called “Love Is Love,” a slogan used by the gay rights movement and quoted by the “Hamilton” creator Lin-Manuel Miranda when his show won at the Tony Awards in 2016.“What’s happening in the world is deeply concerning, but even in our darkest hours, we must continue to seek out the light,” Mr. Hickenlooper said in a statement. “The L.G.B.T.Q. community has long embodied this resilience, maintaining joy and creativity in the face of adversity.”Mr. Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February after purging its previously bipartisan board of Democratic appointees and replacing them with his allies. He denounced its programming as too “wokey” and promised to usher in a “Golden Age in Arts and Culture.”The senators, who exercised a prerogative extended to members of Congress to rent space in the center, chose this week for the event because June has long been when supporters of the gay community have celebrated Pride Month.Mr. Trump, in a departure from previous presidents, has not acknowledged Pride Month, and some of his actions in recent months have prompted concern in the L.G.B.T.Q. community. Since his takeover of the center, several groups have canceled events there, saying they no longer feel welcome.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Television

      Trump’s New ‘Apprentice’ Boardroom: The Oval Office

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      The stately room has long been a site of diplomacy. But the reality-star president often does not come there to make friends.“This is going to be great television, I will say that.”So concluded President Trump after a stunning Oval Office confrontation in February, in front of live cameras, in which he and Vice President JD Vance took turns castigating President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and held out the prospect of withholding support for the country invaded by Russia.At a May meeting with President Cyril Ramaphosa of South Africa, Mr. Trump brought his own television, playing video clips to support his false claims that white South African farmers have been the victims of genocide. The ambush, which also found Mr. Trump showing a news image actually taken from the Democratic Republic of Congo, left Mr. Ramaphosa scrambling to respond. But again, the cameras broadcast it all.The confrontations were shocking compared with how diplomacy has long been conducted in that stately office. But they were not surprising — at least, not to anyone who had watched Mr. Trump during his 14 seasons as the capricious, demanding host of the NBC business-competition series “The Apprentice.”In his high-drama Oval Office meetings, carried live on cable news, Mr. Trump has created himself a reality show right inside the White House. It is a serial production, tailored to his tastes for attention and drama, in which his guests submit to judgment and win a blessing or a tongue-lashing.The dynamic in these showdowns is oddly similar to the climactic “firings” Mr. Trump conducted on the NBC show. Then, as now, Mr. Trump was installed in a set designed to magnify his power — in “The Apprentice,” it was a sleek “boardroom” custom-built to improve on Trump Tower’s underwhelming real-life offices.Reality competition shows and Mr. Trump’s politics operate on the same principles: shock value, conflict, shows of dominance. Escalating a fight is almost always better for ratings than defusing one. So it was in Mr. Trump’s TV career; so it is in his administration, whether the tussle is with a world leader or Elon Musk.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      in Music

      Doechii Criticizes Trump’s Response to L.A. Protests at BET Awards

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      The rapper drew attention to the president deploying the military against protesters in Los Angeles and said it was her responsibility as an artist to speak up for all oppressed people.The rapper Doechii accepted the BET award for best female hip-hop artist on Monday night, but instead of using her acceptance speech as a victory lap, she criticized President Trump for deploying the military against protesters in Los Angeles.“There are ruthless attacks that are creating fear and chaos in our communities in the name of law and order,” Doechii said, pointing to ongoing protests over Mr. Trump’s immigration policies. “Trump is using military forces to stop a protest.” The 25th Annual BET Awards were held downtown at the Peacock Theater.The protests began on Friday when federal agents searched the city’s garment district for workers whom they suspected were undocumented immigrants. The action was part of the Trump administration’s new focus on raiding workplaces.Demonstrations continued over the weekend. Though mostly peaceful, there have been scattered protests that became violent, prompting the authorities to make about 150 arrests and in some cases to use tear gas and crowd-control munitions against protesters. Mr. Trump, calling the protesters “insurrectionists,” mobilized the National Guard, a step Gov. Gavin Newsom has said was “purposefully inflammatory” and intended to create a spectacle.By Monday, the protests had turned calmer, but Mr. Trump doubled the number of deployed California Guard troops to 4,000 and ordered a battalion of 700 Marines to the city.Several hours before the awards ceremony began, a spokesman for BET said the network was working with the Los Angeles Police Department and monitoring the situation for safety reasons, CNN reported. The show went on despite the administration’s escalation of the federal response to the demonstrations.Doechii, who beat out Cardi B, Doja Cat, GloRilla, Latto, Megan Thee Stallion, Nicki Minaj, Rapsody and Sexyy Red, continued her acceptance speech by asking the audience to consider why the government would deploy the military against its people who exercise their constitutional right to protest. She also criticized the Trump administration’s raids on workplaces and aggressive deportation policies.“People are being swept up and torn from their families, and I feel it’s my responsibility as an artist to use this moment to speak up for all oppressed people, for Black people, for Latino people, for trans people, for the people in Gaza,” she said. “We all deserve to live in hope and not in fear, and I hope we stand together, my brothers and my sisters, against hate, and we protest against it.”Her speech drew applause from the audience and was in stark contrast to the Tony Awards on Sunday night, where Mr. Trump was barely mentioned — an unexpected turn for a ceremony that often features more political commentary from its winners and presenters.Doechii, who over the last year has experienced a meteoric rise to the top of hip-hop, in February became the third woman to win a Grammy for best rap album, for “Alligator Bites Never Heal.” More

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      in Television

      Documentary Series Goes Inside Trump’s Bubble

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      Advance episodes of “Art of the Surge” offer a rare behind-the-scenes look at the adulatory environment in which Mr. Trump has moved since regaining power.A few weeks after winning the election, President-elect Donald J. Trump found himself face-to-face with Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland, a rising star in the Democratic Party, as the two men made their way through the bowels of Northwest Stadium in Landover, Md., to watch the annual Army-Navy game.The governor greeted him effusively.“Mr. President, welcome back to Maryland, sir, welcome back to Maryland!” Mr. Moore said. “Great to see you, great to see you, great to have you back here.”“You’re a good-looking guy,” Mr. Trump observed.“We are very, very anxious to be able to work closely with you,” the governor added. Then he mentioned the ongoing efforts to rebuild the Francis Scott Key Bridge outside Baltimore, which had collapsed that March.This chummy encounter was captured on camera for a documentary series called “Art of the Surge,” now streaming on Fox Nation, which provides a rare behind-the-scenes look at the adulatory environment in which Mr. Trump has moved since regaining power. The series gives a sense of how much he is enveloped by people eager to stroke his ego and get in his good graces — including some unexpected figures, according to advance episodes viewed by The New York Times.A still image from video footage of Gov. Wes Moore of Maryland greeting President-elect Donald J. Trump at the Army-Navy football game in December 2024.Art of the SurgeAt one point, inside the V.I.P. box at the football game, Brian Grazer, a top Hollywood producer, gets his photo taken with the president-elect and confides to those in the room that he cast his ballot for the Republican.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 100 Shares109 Views

      in Television

      Nathan Fielder Calls F.A.A. ‘Dumb’ in CNN Interview

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      In a CNN interview to discuss the recent season’s focus on pilot safety, Fielder responded to a Federal Aviation Administration statement and criticized training standards.Nathan Fielder, the creator of the HBO comedy-documentary series “The Rehearsal,” extended his show’s commingling of performance and reality with a live appearance on CNN on Thursday.Fielder went on “The Situation Room With Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown” to promote the second season of “The Rehearsal” (whose finale aired on Sunday), and to raise awareness about airline pilot safety. Fielder had been closely examining safety in the season, including the communication between pilots and co-pilots, which he argued is poor and is a key factor in many plane crashes.In the finale, Fielder himself flew a Boeing 737 passenger jet with more than 100 actors on board in an attempt to simulate inter-pilot communication on real-world commercial flights.On “The Situation Room,” he fired back at criticism from the Federal Aviation Administration, which said in a statement to CNN that it “isn’t seeing the data that supports the show’s central claim that pilot communications is to blame for airline disasters.”“Well that’s dumb, they’re dumb,” Fielder said, sitting next to John Goglia, an aviation expert and former National Transportation Safety Board member who appeared as an adviser on “The Rehearsal” this season. Fielder criticized the F.A.A.’s training standards, which he said do not adequately prepare pilots and co-pilots to speak their mind if they have a concern.“The training is someone shows you a PowerPoint slide saying ‘If you are a co-pilot and the pilot does something wrong, you need to speak up about it,’” he said. “That’s all. That’s the training.”On Friday, the F.A.A. said in a statement that it “requires all airline crew members (pilots and flight attendants) and dispatchers to complete Crew Resource Management training,” which focuses on interactions among crew members.“They must complete this training before they begin working in their official positions and complete it on a recurring basis afterward,” the F.A.A. said.Over the course of six episodes, Fielder recruited several pilots to participate in elaborate role-playing scenarios that tested their ability to navigate sensitive conversations. In one episode, a pilot was encouraged to confront his girlfriend with suspicions of disloyalty while seated next to her in a mock cockpit. In another, several pilots were graded on their ability to deliver harsh feedback to contestants in a fake singing competition show.Although the scenarios are contrived and frequently involve actors, the show also regularly depicts what appear to be genuine interactions with nonactors. The fifth episode featured an awkward interview with a congressman, Steve Cohen of Tennessee, a member of the aviation subcommittee. And Goglia’s appearances are played completely straight.“It’s exploded,” Goglia said on “The Situation Room,” when asked about the public reaction to the show. “My emails exploded, my messages exploded, my grandkids were all over me — it’s unbelievable, the response.” More

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      in Theater

      ‘Good Night, and Good Luck’ Remembers When TV Had a Conscience, and a Spine

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      A TV critic looks at George Clooney’s play about CBS News standing up to political pressure, even as its current ownership might succumb to it.In the Broadway play “Good Night, and Good Luck,” the CBS newscaster Edward R. Murrow (George Clooney) allows himself a moment of doubt, as his program “See It Now” embarks on a series of reports on the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950s.“It occurs to me,” he says, “that we might not get away with this one.”It is a small but important line. We know Murrow’s story — exposing the red-baiting demagoguery of Senator Joseph McCarthy — as history. And history, once set down on the page and stage, can seem inevitable.But Murrow’s success was not preordained. It required hard, exacting work. It required guts. It required journalists to risk personal ruin and some of them to experience it.It’s a point worth remembering. And it hits especially hard at this moment, when CBS News, headquartered just blocks away from the Winter Garden Theater, is again under political and financial pressure to rein in its coverage of the powerful. History is repeating, this time perhaps as tragedy. (CNN is airing the play’s June 7 evening performance live, as if to give the news business a shot in the arm.)In “Good Night, and Good Luck,” adapted from the 2005 screenplay by Clooney and Grant Heslov, all ends well, more or less. (The “less” is implied in the stage production by a “We Didn’t Start the Fire”-like closing montage that ties the division and chaos of the past several decades to the cacophony of media.)Murrow ultimately received support — however nervous and limited — from his network. Its chief, William S. Paley (Paul Gross), fretted about pressure from politicians and from the “See It Now” sponsor, the aluminum company Alcoa. But while Paley complained about the agita Murrow brought him, he did not pull the plug on the McCarthy investigation.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 113 Shares179 Views

      in Music

      Bruce Springsteen Releases EP Including Remarks That Angered Trump

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      After Bruce Springsteen criticized the Trump administration on tour, the president said he should “KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT.” Instead, Mr. Springsteen included his comments on a new release.After Bruce Springsteen opened a tour of England last week with a denunciation of President Trump, the president taunted Mr. Springsteen on social media and wrote that he “ought to KEEP HIS MOUTH SHUT” until he returns to the United States.Mr. Springsteen, undeterred, released a six-track EP this week which begins with his remarks that America “is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent and treasonous administration.”The new EP, “Land of Hope & Dreams,” offers a mix of songs and Mr. Springsteen’s pointed political remarks from his May 14 concert in Manchester, England.In the introduction to the song “My City of Ruins,” Mr. Springsteen takes on a somber tone, telling the audience that in the United States the authorities were “persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent.” He said that the nation was cutting aid to the poor, abandoning allies, rolling back civil rights protections, defunding universities and deporting people without due process.“A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government,” Mr. Springsteen said. “They have no concern or idea for what it means to be deeply American.”Mr. Springsteen’s remarks were perhaps not surprising, given that he endorsed Kamala Harris during the 2024 presidential campaign and has supported a long list of Democratic candidates over the years. But they were notable since a number of other major stars have seemed to mute their criticisms of the president.After Mr. Springsteen’s comments were reported last week, Mr. Trump responded with a social media post calling him a “dried out ‘prune’ of a rocker (his skin is all atrophied!).” After saying Mr. Springsteen should stay silent until he returns to the United States, the president added: “Then we’ll all see how it goes for him!”Mr. Trump has continued to criticize Mr. Springsteen since then, including on Monday, when he called for a “major investigation” into Mr. Springsteen and other celebrities including Beyoncé, Oprah Winfrey and Bono. More

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      in Movies

      Los Angeles Mayor Seeks to Lure Filming Back by Cutting Red Tape

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      With film and TV production in Los Angeles down by roughly one-third in recent years, Mayor Karen Bass took steps to make it easier to shoot at top locations.Mayor Karen Bass of Los Angeles said Tuesday that she was taking steps to make filming in the city easier as local, state and federal officials have grown concerned about the exodus of film and television production to other states and nations.The mayor issued an executive directive to streamline city processes, lower the costs of filming in the city and make it easier for productions to shoot at well-known city-owned locations like the Griffith Observatory. The mayor also reaffirmed her support for a massive funding increase for the state’s film tax credit program.“We are going to fight now,” Ms. Bass said at a news conference on Tuesday morning. “While we push for the tax credits to be passed in Sacramento, we need to do what we can today to impact building in Los Angeles.”Though the specific changes detailed in the directive are somewhat technical, the move by Ms. Bass represents a signal of her support for the film industry at a time it faces something of a existential crisis. Filming in the region is down roughly a third in recent years, lured away by massive subsidies in other states and other countries, which often offer cheaper labor. The exodus has left tens of thousands of middle-class union workers without jobs.At the news conference inside SAG-AFTRA’s headquarters, Ms. Bass — flanked by more than a dozen members of the film and television industry — also reiterated her support for a proposal by Gov. Gavin Newsom of California to dramatically increase the size of the state’s tax credit program for film and television to $750 million annually from $330 million.Lawmakers in Sacramento are expected to finalize the state budget next month. Mr. Newsom’s plan appears to have wide support, but exactly how much money lawmakers will ultimately allot to Hollywood at a time the state faces a $12 billion deficit is unclear.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

    • 138 Shares189 Views

      in Music

      Michael Flynn, a Trump Ally, Sponsors Beethoven at the Kennedy Center

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      Following the president’s overhaul of the center, Mr. Flynn, the former national security adviser, has made a substantial gift to the National Symphony Orchestra.The list of donors to the National Symphony Orchestra, one of the Kennedy Center’s flagship ensembles, is usually filled with financiers, socialites, corporations and foundations.But the name of a sponsor of this week’s performances of Beethoven’s “Missa Solemnis” stood out. It was Michael T. Flynn, the general and former national security adviser during President Trump’s first term. He was listed, along with his nonprofit, America’s Future Inc., as “performance sponsors” for the National Symphony Orchestra’s concerts from May 15 to 17.Mr. Flynn said on social media that his nonprofit was “thrilled to sponsor a spectacular three-night performance at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts!”“This performance is filled with a vibrant celebration of music, culture, and the unyielding spirit uniting all Americans,” he wrote in a post on X. “The Kennedy Center shines as a proud symbol of our nation’s legacy!”Mr. Flynn’s gift to the National Symphony Orchestra totaled $300,000, according to two people familiar with the donation who were granted anonymity because details of the gift were not publicized.Officials at the Kennedy Center said they did not have details of the gift.“We didn’t know how much but we welcome all sponsorships,” the center said in a statement.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More