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      in Theater

      Theaters Sue the N.E.A. Over Trump’s ‘Gender Ideology’ Order

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      The lawsuit seeks to block a new rule that requires groups applying for grants from the National Endowment for the Arts to agree not to promote “gender ideology.”Several arts organizations sued the National Endowment for the Arts on Thursday, challenging its new requirement that grant applicants agree to comply with President Trump’s executive orders by promising not to promote “gender ideology.”The groups that filed the suit have made or supported art about transgender and nonbinary people, and have received N.E.A. funding in the past. They say the new requirement unconstitutionally threatens their eligibility for future grants.“Because they seek to affirm transgender and nonbinary identities and experiences in the projects for which they seek funding, plaintiffs are effectively barred by the ‘gender ideology’ certification and prohibition from receiving N.E.A. grants on artistic merit and excellence grounds,” the lawsuit says.The groups are being represented in the litigation by the American Civil Liberties Union, which said in the lawsuit that the N.E.A. rule “has sowed chaos in the funding of arts projects across the United States.” After Mr. Trump began his second term, the N.E.A. said it would require grant applicants to agree “that federal funds shall not be used to promote gender ideology,” which Mr. Trump said in an executive order includes “the false claim that males can identify as and thus become women and vice versa.”The N.E.A. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.The suit was filed in a federal court in Rhode Island on behalf of Rhode Island Latino Arts, which promotes art made by Latinos; the Theater Offensive, an organization in Boston that presents work “by, for and about queer and trans people of color”; and National Queer Theater, a New York company best known for its Criminal Queerness Festival, which presents the work of international artists with roots in countries where their sexuality is criminalized or censored.“The N.E.A. has been a very robust supporter of ours,” said Adam Odsess-Rubin, the founding artistic director of National Queer Theater, which received $20,000 from the N.E.A. in 2023, $25,000 in 2024, and has been scheduled to receive $20,000 this year. “It’s ironic for us to be asked to check a box saying we won’t promote gender ideology; it doesn’t make sense to us; it’s not clear how it serves the American public at all, and, frankly, it’s discriminatory.”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 Movies

      Trump and Politics Were Largely Absent From the Oscars

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      Washington was an entire country away.At the Academy Awards on Sunday, there were relatively few references to politics. The most direct commentary on President Trump and the upheaval in the capital was an oblique reference by the host of the telecast, Conan O’Brien.“You know, ‘Anora’ is having a good night,” Mr. O’Brien said, referring to the Oscar-winning film about a sex worker’s short-lived romance with the son of a Russian oligarch. One of the movie’s emotional high points is when its working-class protagonist, played by Mikey Madison, dresses down the powerful family.“I guess Americans are excited to see somebody finally stand up to a powerful Russian,” Mr. O’Brien said.The comment was the closest he got to uttering the name of Mr. Trump, whose administration has been dealing with the fallout from his public blowup in the Oval Office with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine. The dispute involved Mr. Trump scolding Mr. Zelensky for his harsh words for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.Aside from alluding to the country’s “divisive politics,” Mr. O’Brien also kept Washington at arm’s length during his opening monologue, in which he kept the focus on Hollywood.Daryl Hannah was more direct as she presented the best editing category. “Slava Ukraine,” she said, before moving on to the award at hand.In accepting the award for best supporting actress, Zoe Saldaña hinted at the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. “I am a proud child of immigrant parents with dreams and dignity and hardworking hands,” she said.The most political moment of the telecast, by far, was the award for best documentary feature, which went to “No Other Land,” an exploration of the Israeli demolitions of Palestinian homes in the southern West Bank.During his acceptance speech, Basel Adra, a Palestinian activist and one of the filmmakers, called “on the world to take serious actions to stop the injustice and to stop the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian people.”Yuval Abraham, an Israeli journalist who directed the film with Adra, said he believed there was a political solution to the conflict that includes national rights “for both of our people.” “And I have to say, as I am here, the foreign policy in this country is helping to block this path,” he said.The Oscars were the latest awards ceremony this year to largely steer clear from politics. Presenters and winners at the Golden Globes avoided the subject, while a few artists alluded to politics onstage during the Grammys.A reference to the president during the Oscars was perhaps most likely in the best actor category, in which Sebastian Stan was nominated for his portrayal of Mr. Trump in “The Apprentice.” Instead, the award went to Adrien Brody for “The Brutalist.” More

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      in Music

      The Violinist Christian Tetzlaff’s Tactic to Oppose Trump’s Agenda: Cancel Concerts

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      Christian Tetzlaff said he was disturbed by the president’s embrace of Russia and other policies. “There seems to be a quietness or denial about what’s going on,” he said.When the German violinist Christian Tetzlaff returned home to Berlin after a recent performance in Chicago, he was distraught. The concert had gone well, but he was increasingly disturbed by political developments in the United States: President Trump’s embrace of Russia, the dizzying cuts to the federal work force and changes in policies affecting transgender Americans.“I felt like a child watching a horror film,” he said in an interview.On Friday, Mr. Tetzlaff, 58, a renowned violinist who frequently performs in the United States, said that he was canceling an eight-city tour of the country with his quartet this spring — including a stop at Carnegie Hall — and that he was unlikely to perform again in America unless the government reversed course.“There seems to be a quietness or denial about what’s going on,” he said. “I feel utter anger. I cannot go on with this feeling inside. I cannot just go and play a tour of beautiful concerts.”Harrison W. Fields, a White House spokesman, offered a two-word response to Mr. Tetzlaff’s cancellation: “America first.”Mr. Tetzlaff is one of the first major foreign artists to try to use a cultural boycott to influence Mr. Trump’s policies during his second term.For decades, American artists have canceled tours as a means of protesting war, autocracy, injustice and discrimination abroad. There were cultural boycotts of South Africa in the 1970s and 1980s in protest of its policy of apartheid, and more recently, artists have refused to perform in Russia since its invasion of Ukraine in 2022.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 Movies

      Jane Fonda’s SAG Awards Speech: ‘Empathy Is Not Weak or Woke’

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      While some stars have been less politically outspoken this awards season, she issued a call to action as she accepted a lifetime achievement award from the Screen Actors Guild.Jane Fonda, who has been politically outspoken since the Vietnam War era, urged people “to resist successfully what is coming at us” as she accepted a lifetime achievement award Sunday night during the Screen Actors Guild Awards.“Make no mistake, empathy is not weak or woke,” said Fonda, 87. “And by the way, woke just means you give a damn about other people.”She never explicitly mentioned President Trump or his administration, but she seemed to allude to them as she warned of bad things to come.“A whole lot of people are going to be really hurt by what is happening, what is coming our way,” Fonda said. “Even if they are of a different political persuasion, we need to call upon our empathy and not judge but listen from our hearts and welcome them into our tent. Because we are going to need a big tent to resist successfully what is coming at us.”Fonda, a two-time Academy Award winner, has long been known for political activism, particularly her support for the civil rights movement and Indigenous rights and for her opposition to the Vietnam War. A 1972 visit to North Vietnam led some critics to call her “Hanoi Jane”; she has since apologized to soldiers and veterans for being photographed there on an antiaircraft gun. In more recent years, she has fought to draw attention to the climate crisis.In her acceptance speech, she expressed her strong support for unions and noted that when she was starting out in the late 1950s, some leading Hollywood figures had been prominently resisting McCarthyism. She also said that she believes Americans are currently facing the same kinds of challenges that have been captured in historical documentaries about social movements, including apartheid, the civil rights movement and the Stonewall Rebellion.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

      Coming Soon to Trump’s Kennedy Center: A Celebration of Christ

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      President Trump took control of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington only last week. But his administration is already making plans for reshaping the institution’s programming.Chief among them: a celebration of Christ planned for December. Richard Grenell, whom Mr. Trump named as the Kennedy Center’s new president, told a conservative gathering on Friday that the “big change” at the center would be that “we are doing a big, huge celebration of the birth of Christ at Christmas.”“How crazy is it to think that we’re going to celebrate Christ at Christmas with a big traditional production, to celebrate what we are all celebrating in the world during Christmastime, which is the birth of Christ?” Mr. Grenell said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Md.The Kennedy Center has long held Christmas-themed events.Last December, the center hosted “A Candlelight Christmas” by the Washington Chorus; “A Family Christmas” by the Choral Arts Society of Washington; and “Go Tell It,” a Christmas celebration by the Alfred Street Baptist Church, a prominent Black church in Virginia. (On Sunday, the church said it would cancel its Christmas concert there this year because the Kennedy Center’s new leaders stood in opposition to the “longstanding tradition of honoring artistic expression across all backgrounds.”)Mr. Grenell’s comments were his first public remarks in which he discussed his plans as the Kennedy Center’s new leader. His appointment was part of a series of extraordinary actions Mr. Trump took to solidify control over the Kennedy Center, which has been a bipartisan institution throughout its 54-year history.Mr. Trump, who stayed away from the Kennedy Center Honors during his first term after some of the artists being honored criticized him, stunned the cultural world when he decided this month to purge the center’s board of all Biden appointees and install himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade, and the post was given to Mr. Grenell, a Trump loyalist who was ambassador to Germany during the president’s first term.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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      At Kennedy Center, Trump Inherits a Tough Job: Fund-Raising

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      For the arts institution, which receives only a small portion of its budget from federal funding, the perennial challenge is to raise additional revenue through ticket sales and private donations.In just one week, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington has been completely transformed.President Trump purged the center’s board of all Biden appointees and installed himself as chairman, ousting the financier David M. Rubenstein, the center’s largest donor. The new board fired Deborah F. Rutter, the center’s president for more than a decade. At least three other top staff members were dismissed.Performers have dropped out in protest amid fears that Mr. Trump’s call to rid the center of “woke” influences, drag shows and “anti-American propaganda” will result in a reshaping of programming too narrowly aligned with the president’s own tastes.This concern — that the center’s tradition of pluralism, free expression and classical art forms is in jeopardy — has dominated conversation about its future. But just as relevant, experts say, are questions about its financial stability.Though the abrupt takeover by the new administration might suggest the center is an arts adjunct of the federal government, it is actually a semi-independent nonprofit.It operates under the Smithsonian Institution as a public-private partnership, and only a small portion of its $268 million budget — about $43 million, or 16 percent — comes from the federal government. That subsidy is not spent on programming but is earmarked for operations, maintenance and repairs of the property, which is federally owned.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 Theater

      Hundreds of Artists Call on N.E.A. to Roll Back Trump’s Restrictions

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      In one of the first signs of collective pushback to the Trump administration’s arts initiatives, several hundred American artists are calling on the National Endowment for the Arts to roll back restrictions on grants to institutions with programming that promotes diversity or “gender ideology.”Among the 463 writers, poets, dancers, visual artists and others who signed the letter are the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwrights Jackie Sibblies Drury, Lynn Nottage and Paula Vogel. There is also one name with striking historical resonance: Holly Hughes, a performance artist who in 1990 was one of the so-called N.E.A. Four, denied funding by the agency because of concern from conservative critics at the height of that era’s culture wars.“In some ways this just feels like déjà vu all over again,” Ms. Hughes, now a professor of art and design at the University of Michigan, said in a telephone interview. “These funding restrictions are a good barometer for who is the easy punching bag in American culture at the moment.”The artists on Tuesday sent a letter to the N.E.A. objecting to new requirements for grant applicants that the organization put in place this month to comply with executive orders signed by President Trump. One of the requirements is that applicants “not operate any programs promoting ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ that violate any applicable federal anti-discrimination laws”; the other is that federal funds not be used “to promote gender ideology,” referring to an executive order, prompted by Mr. Trump’s concern about public policy toward transgender people, that declares that American policy is “to recognize two sexes, male and female.”The artists’ letter asks the N.E.A. to “reverse” the changes, saying “abandoning our values is wrong, and it won’t protect us. Obedience in advance only feeds authoritarianism.”“Trump and his enablers may use doublespeak to claim that support for artists of color amounts to ‘discrimination’ and that funding the work of trans and women artists promotes ‘gender ideology’ (whatever that is),” the letter adds. “But we know better: the arts are for and represent everybody.”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

      A Night at the Kennedy Center, Just After Trump’s Takeover

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      It’s still called the Kennedy Center. But after President Trump’s takeover, drag performers protested outside while audience members inside worried about what might be in store.It was the night after President Trump had officially taken over the Kennedy Center and made himself its chairman, and two well-dressed Washington women were wandering along the plush red carpet inside its Grand Foyer, so grand it could fit the Washington Monument laid on its side. They reached the eight-foot-tall bronze head of John F. Kennedy that lords over the hall and looked forlornly into his eyes.How much longer, one woman joked to the other, until the statue of the 35th president gets torn down and replaced with one of the 47th? They laughed bitterly.It was just last week that Mr. Trump announced his plan to purge the Kennedy Center’s board of its Biden appointees and to install “an amazing Chairman, DONALD J. TRUMP!” He named one of his most fiercely loyal apparatchiks, Richard Grenell, interim president and proclaimed that there would be no more “ANTI-AMERICAN PROPAGANDA” shown. He complained about drag queens performing there and said it had all become too “wokey.” Some artists canceled shows. “Welcome to the New Kennedy Center!” Mr. Trump said on social media, posting an A.I.-generated image of himself waving his arms like a conductor in a concert hall.Most of the people who turned up at the Kennedy Center on Thursday night to see performances in its various theaters had purchased their tickets long before any of that was set in motion. Now they found themselves at an arts center on the cusp of becoming something different — something Trumpian.Some speculated what that might look like.“I feel like we might just have ‘Cats’ on rotation moving forward,” said Pamela Deutsch, a documentary film producer who once worked as an usher at the Kennedy Center. (Mr. Trump, who once had dreams of becoming a Broadway producer, is a longtime fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber.) She was there to catch a set by the comic W. Kamau Bell. So was Louis Woolard, a 73-year-old psychotherapist from Maryland. What sort of cultural programming did he envision under the artistic stewardship of the 47th president? “I don’t know,” said Mr. Woolard. “I guess country music.”At the other end of the Grand Foyer, American Ballet Theater was putting on a production of “Crime and Punishment,” an effort to make dance out of Dostoyevsky. A 75-year-old real estate investment banker named Wayne Koonce waited in line to have his ticket scanned. “Maybe the Mariinsky and the Bolshoi will be invited back now that he’s cozying up to Putin,” he said.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