The Kennedy Center is temporarily suspending free public tours of the performing arts venue after a volunteer tour guide spoke with the New York Times about President Donald Trump‘s efforts to gut the cultural institution.
An internal memo said the center was placing a “temporary pause” on the tour program, starting Friday. Brooks Boeke, director of the Friends of the Kennedy Center volunteer program, wrote the memo as reported by the New York Times. However, she later backtracked on the severity of the tour program’s suspension, saying it would only last a few days. Boeke’s statement of clarification was reported by the Washington Post.
The pause affects tour guides, who were instructed to stop handling the free tours “until further notice.” The memo was sent to the entire volunteer corps at the center as its future remains uncertain.
It is unclear why the free public tours were halted in the first place, as the memo did not mention a reason. A Kennedy Center spokesperson said the move is part of a “review of campuswide tour routes to ensure they provide the best possible experience for our visitors.”
The tour program has run continuously almost every year since the Kennedy Center’s opening in 1971, except for a one-year hiatus in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Three volunteers at the Kennedy Center reportedly worried that the Trump administration may retaliate against the tour program in response to a critical interview that a volunteer tour guide granted to the New York Times.
In the profile piece, Sandy Weiswasser, 87, told the newspaper that the performing arts center has become quieter than in previous years, suggesting she doesn’t like what the president has done to remake the venue’s leadership and programming.
“This place used to be really thriving and busy and crowded,” said Weiswasser, who has guided tours at the center for 18 years. “Now it’s a black hole.”
The article was published on Monday, three days before Boeke penned the initial memo about the tour program’s suspension.
The new development comes amid a legal battle that effectively halted Trump’s plans to close the Kennedy Center for two years to make way for extensive renovations. The administration is fighting the court order, but it acquiesced to the federal judge’s demand that Trump’s name be removed from the center.
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The Kennedy Center board of trustees is expected to meet in the first half of August to discuss next steps as to how it’s handling the court case. The board needs to provide operational and construction updates to the judge by Aug. 20 or within five days of its August meeting, whichever comes first.
Trump believed a two-year renovation period was necessary to address the Kennedy Center’s structural disrepair and water damage. The judge said the decision to close the center for that amount of time was “ill-informed and seemingly preordained” and based on an “insufficient, one-sided presentation of information” that ignored the center’s statutory obligations under federal law. The Kennedy Center’s programming has largely been scaled back until the legal turmoil is resolved.