Kennedy Center’s President Is Leaving After Tumultuous Year

Richard Grenell, a close ally of President Donald Trump, is leaving his position as head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts after a tumultuous year that included an exodus of artists and audiences from the Washington cultural institution.

Trump announced Grenell’s departure from the center, which will soon close for two years of renovations, in a post on social media Friday afternoon.

“Ric Grenell has done an excellent job in helping to coordinate various elements of the Center during the transition period, and I want to thank him for the outstanding work he has done,” Trump wrote.

The president said Grenell would be replaced by Matt Floca, the center’s vice president of facilities operations. Trump said that Floca “has helped us achieve tremendous progress in bringing the Center to the highest level of Excellence!”

Grenell, a former ambassador to Germany, is stepping aside as the center prepares to close around July 4. Trump announced the shutdown after months of headlines about boycotts by patrons and high-profile artists, including composer Philip Glass, Grammy-winning banjo player Béla Fleck, the San Francisco Ballet and the traveling production of “Hamilton.”

Grenell declined to comment.

He leaves behind an institution that is drastically changed, and in many ways diminished, from a year ago, when Trump installed himself as chair of the center and filled the board with loyalists as he moved to put his imprint on the center, including what appeared on its stages. The president went on to insert his name into that of the center, which opened in 1971 in tribute to John F. Kennedy.

Grenell’s leadership was animated by declarations that he had been working to clean up past financial mismanagement, along with demands to get rid of “woke” programming and refocus on more commercial fare that would attract new audiences and donors. In conversation with dance programmers, he cited the TV show “So You Think You Can Dance” and Paula Abdul as examples of the kind of material he wanted.

“We cannot have unpopular programming that doesn’t pay the bills,” he said in an interview with PBS “News Hour” this year.

The upheaval at a traditionally nonpartisan institution, where Republicans and Democrats have over the decades sat side by side for opera, theater and orchestra performances as well as black-tie gala events like the Kennedy Center Honors, set off a storm in the cultural world.

The Washington National Opera, a pillar of the center, announced that it was moving out because of a decline in attendance and an edict from Grenell that all productions had to show how they would break even before the curtain raised. (Operas rarely make a profit from ticket sales alone, relying instead on contributions, but still often end up losing money.)

The center’s other major classical music organization, the National Symphony Orchestra, continued to perform there — but often to empty seats, and scrambling to find substitutes for artists who canceled. And last week its executive director, Jean Davidson, announced she was leaving, saying that she did not “see how I could be effective as a leader in the current climate.”

Under Grenell’s leadership, dozens of Kennedy Center employees were fired or quit. The institution increasingly bowed to Trump’s demands and, at times, his cultural preferences. The president had approval over the selection of honorees for last year’s Kennedy Center Honors, which he hosted himself.

Trump’s decision to temporarily close the Kennedy Center caused an uproar among Democrats. Rep. Joyce Beatty of Ohio, an ex officio member of the center’s board, has asked a federal court to block the plan, warning that Trump could be planning a surprise demolition of the center.

The news of Grenell’s departure was earlier reported by Axios.

Floca, who has a background in construction management, is stepping in as the center moves from a focus on offering arts programs to construction and rebuilding, with employees bracing for layoffs. He joined the Kennedy Center in 2024 as vice president of facilities, and has been the main point person on renovations as Trump has taken an interest in leaving his mark on the building.

Floca oversaw the addition of Trump’s name onto the marble facade late last year, as well as the president’s demand to paint the building’s gold columns white. At one point, the president, who has said he considers renovation projects “relaxing,” was calling Floca on an almost weekly basis to check on the renovations. Floca has said Trump weighed in on details of the building, including its chillers and boilers.

Trump secured $257 million for repairs in his spending bill that passed last year, leaving Floca with an enormous budget. Kennedy Center officials have said the renovations will include work on the building’s exterior, as well as its HVAC, plumbing, electrical, fire protection and technical stage systems.

On Friday, Trump posted two renderings of the future Kennedy Center online and said that it would be “the finest facility of its kind anywhere in the World!” It is not clear, however, whether performers and audiences will return as enthusiastically, much less what it will look like after the project is completed.