‘Wicked’ composer says he won’t appear at Kennedy Centre after name change

Stephen Schwartz attends the "Wicked: Part One" European Premiere in London in November 2024. (Credit: Tim P. Whitby/Getty Images via CNN Newsource)

“Wicked” composer Stephen Schwartz says he will not appear at the Kennedy Centre after its board voted to attach U.S. President Donald Trump’s name to the venue — becoming the latest artist to push back against the president’s takeover of Washington’s most iconic performing arts centre.

The Oscar and Grammy-award winning composer said in a statement, “The Kennedy Centre was founded to be an apolitical home for artists of all nationalities and all ideologies. It is no longer apolitical, and appearing there has become an ideological statement. As long as that remains the case, I will not appear there.”

The centre’s website had listed Schwartz as appearing in a gala with the Washington National Opera in May, and included a link to buy tickets to the performance, but it was removed from the website Friday afternoon.

In spite of the website listing the upcoming appearance by Schwartz, Richard Grenell, the president of the centre’s board, denied that he had ever been signed to appear.

“He was never signed and I’ve never had a single conversation on him since arriving,” Grenell said in a post on X, calling reports of Schwartz’s cancelation “totally bogus.”

“He himself said last February he hadn’t heard anything on it,” Grenell said.

A spokesman for Schwartz said the composer and a person associated with the Washington National Opera had been in communication about his “possible participation” in a May gala, and they had last spoken in February 2025.

“Having not heard anything further after that point, he assumed—incorrectly, as it turns out—that the event was no longer moving forward,” the spokesman, Michael Cole, said in an email to CNN. Cole added that Schwartz had only learned Thursday night that the event was still scheduled.

The Kennedy Centre opened in 1971, designated by Congress as a living memorial to the assassinated U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Schwartz attended the centre’s opening.

But a stream of artists have canceled their appearances since Trump purged the centre’s existing board and installed a slate of loyalists to oversee the centre last year. Since then, the centre has cut staff and reevaluated its programming.

More artists canceled after the new board voted last month to rename the centre the “The Donald J. Trump and The John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts,” prompting threats of legal action from the Kennedy Centre against some of those artists.

The move quickly raised legal concerns as to whether the board had the legal authority to rename the arts institution. But it’s unclear whether anybody looking to challenge the renaming would have legal standing to do so, experts previously told CNN.