NEWS: Cancellations Continue to Roll The Kennedy Center

The ceiling of The Kennedy Center’s Opera House in Washington, DC. Photo by Ron Blunt, courtesy of The Kennedy Center.

Disruptions continue to spawn at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, long one of the nation’s leading arts institutions in Washington, DC. The celebrated opera Fellow Travelers – which enjoyed a sold-out run at Minnesota Opera in 2018 – has been withdrawn from The Kennedy Center’s forthcoming season. The opera’s creators cited an irreconcilable conflict with the current presidential administration and its replacement of The Kennedy Center’s leadership.

Fellow Travelers, one of the most-produced modern operas, explores the anti-gay “Lavender Scare” of the 1950s, during which suspected and actual gay U.S. federal employees were forced from their positions, allegedly due to suspicions that their sexuality might make them vulnerable to blackmail by fellow agents. The 2007 source novel by Thomas Mallon has been adapted both into a 2016 opera by Gregory Spears and Greg Pierce, and into a 2023 Showtime miniseries.

Since beginning a second term as U.S. president, Donald Trump engaged in a wholesale replacement of the Kennedy Center’s traditionally bipartisan board, and instructed the board to elect him as its president. Numerous cancellations paralleling his presidential administration’s other actions have affected programming at The Kennedy Center – some initiated by external producers, and some from the center’s new leadership. As the number of cancellations approaches thirty, some of the most profile changes include Hamilton (cancelled by its producers) and Fellow Travelers – both works that would otherwise have buoyed the institution’s bottom line with smash ticket sales.

The cast of Minnesota Opera’s 2018 critically and popularly acclaimed performance of *Fellow Travelers*, which sold out its entire run. The opera was originally scheduled to be staged by Washington National Opera in its 2025-2026 season, but has been cancelled after the team behind the work withdrew, citing an incompatibility between their and the production’s values, and the current climate at The Kennedy Center. Photo by Dan Norman.

A note explaining the decision to cancel Fellow Travelers – which was to have been staged by Washington National Opera, the resident opera company at The Kennedy Center – was signed by director Kevin Newbury, producer Jecca Barry, composer Gregory Spears, librettist Greg Pierce, and the novelist Thomas Mallon.

The full statement is below:

Up Until Now Collective and the creative team of Fellow Travelers are grateful to Washington National Opera, and its leaders Tim O’Leary and Francesca Zambello, for its enthusiastic embrace of the opera, and for its efforts to mount a presentation next season.

However, as the final considerations for that production approached, we have wrestled with our conflicting emotions about bringing the work to the Kennedy Center at this time.

Regrettably, we have decided that we cannot move forward.

Fellow Travelers is a love story set against the ruthless purging of LGBTQ+ people from the State Department in the 1950s. It has become one of the most produced operas of its generation – with 14 productions from America’s biggest cities to her heartland. The expansion of freedom and liberty for all people are core values of the opera and the book upon which it is based. The current administration’s takeover of the Kennedy Center and many of its policies contradict those values.

We want nothing more than for audiences in Washington D.C. to have an opportunity to see this timely and important work. If there is a pathway to a presentation in collaboration with another area theater, we are eager to explore it. But at this time, we have made the impossibly difficult decision that the Kennedy Center is not a place the team feels comfortable having the work presented.

We have the greatest respect for Washington National Opera and the whole team that worked so hard to make Fellow Travelers happen. And we sincerely hope we can look forward to its eventual presentation in Washington D.C.

Kevin Newbury, Director
Jecca Barry, Producer
Gregory Spears, Composer
Greg Pierce, Librettist,
Thomas Mallon, author of the novel Fellow Travelers

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Amy Donahue

Amy Donahue is a staff reviewer at the Twin Cities Arts Reader. She interned with the magazine during the summer of 2017, served as a guest contributor while studying abroad in Europe that fall, and has moved up to regular old reviewing. She served as interim Editor-in-Chief in 2023.

She admits to being at least 50% terrified of contemporary German opera.