Updated June 24, 2025 at 3:15 PM EDT
A group of Democratic senators and Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller hosted a Pride celebration at the Kennedy Center Monday evening. But the Kennedy Center had nothing to do with programming it.
Senators John Hickenlooper of Colorado, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jacky Rosen of Nevada, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, and Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin rented the Justice Forum, a small theater at the REACH, an expansion to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts that opened in 2019.
While the group of senators booked the space a few weeks ago, the Pride event, called Love Is Love, wasn't announced until Monday. A statement from Sen. Hickenlooper's office said the event was "about standing up for the arts and the progress the LGBTQ community has made. The performance reminds us that our fight for equality — and for democracy — isn't over. It's happening right now."
Directed by Seth Rudetsky and James Wesley, the show celebrated gay culture with songs and spoken word performances by top Broadway talent, including John Cameron Mitchell, Jelani Remy, Lisa Kron and Andrew Lippa.
Details of Monday night's show were first reported by The New York Times. Seller, whose credits also include Rent and Avenue Q, told the outlet that Hickenlooper called him to see if he'd like to engage in some "guerrilla theater." Seller, who is gay, didn't hesitate.
After President Trump took over the Kennedy Center in February, Seller and Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda canceled a production of the touring show scheduled for the Center in 2026. At the time, Seller wrote on X, "The recent purge by the Trump Administration of both professional staff and performing arts events at or originally produced by the Kennedy Center flies in the face of everything this national center represents."
Seller told The New York Times that Monday night's show is "our way of reoccupying the Kennedy Center."
Kennedy Center president Richard Grenell called Monday night's Pride event a "political stunt" in a statement released after this story was published and just as the show began.
"I'm disappointed to learn that Hamilton Producer Jeffery Seller and Hamilton Creator Lin-Manuel Miranda are working with Democratic Senators and The New York Times to boycott the Kennedy Center, refusing to perform for audience members who don't share their personal politics, and cosplay as victims of intolerance," Grenell wrote. Organizers said Miranda was not involved in Monday night's show.
According to Grenell's statement, Sen. Hickenlooper's staff told him the theater would be used for a "first annual Talent show."
"We were pleased to welcome them to the Kennedy Center in this capacity," wrote Grenell. "We were only later notified by The New York Times that Senator Hickenlooper's event was instead an invite-only political stunt where, once again, the Kennedy Center was being used by political operatives to larp [Live Action Role Playing] as victims of intolerance in order to get a story in the Times."
Meanwhile, the White House has proposed a major increase to the Kennedy Center's federal funding, while funds to other cultural institutions have been severely cut. The request of nearly $257 million is, according to President Trump's domestic tax and policy bill, "for necessary expenses for capital repair, restoration, maintenance backlog, and security structures of the building and site of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts."
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