Despite Trump’s Threats, Kennedy Center’s Next Season Embraces “Woke” Theatre
by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder
Despite the never-ending tantrums from the Trump crowd about drag queens, diversity, and musicals that dare to reflect the real world, the Kennedy Center just announced its 2025–2026 Broadway season, and let’s just say it doesn’t exactly toe the far-right line. Unless, of course, your idea of wholesome, traditional values includes crossdressing nannies, murderesses in fishnets, queer-coded Bohemians, and a whole lot of power ballads.
This season’s lineup includes non-Equity tours of Chicago and Mrs. Doubtfire. As well as Back to the Future, Moulin Rouge! The Musical, and The Outsiders - a mix of titles that reflect everything the far-right claims to fear.
And the kicker? This all comes after Donald Trump, now back in the White House, appointed himself chairman of the Kennedy Center’s board. He promised to clean things up, end “woke” programming, and bring in more family-friendly fare like Cats and Phantom of the Opera. He’s even pushed for an investigation into the Kennedy Center’s budget, axed DEI programs, and triggered the departure of high-profile artists and productions like Hamilton.
But this new season? It seems as though Trump’s appointed team at the Kennedy Center didn’t read the synopsis of these shows.
Let’s break it down.
Chicago
A musical about women who kill their lovers, charm the press, and manipulate the justice system. It’s a satirical slap in the face to the idea that good girls stay quiet. It critiques celebrity culture and shows how the media turns criminals into icons if they’re sexy enough. It gives power to women who refuse to apologize for it. In many productions, roles have been reimagined with gender-fluid casting or drag performers, and the story celebrates self-possession over shame. That’s strike one for the anti-woke brigade.
Mrs. Doubtfire
At its core, this is a story about love and fatherhood, but let’s not pretend the drag element doesn’t make certain people clutch their pearls. Daniel disguises himself as a female nanny in order to see his kids after a divorce. It’s campy, emotional, and layered with messages about nontraditional families, male vulnerability, and empathy for people living outside rigid gender expectations. This show invites audiences to laugh, cry, and maybe even understand someone who doesn’t conform to a binary view of gender.
Back to the Future
On the surface, it’s a family-friendly, nostalgia-packed adventure. But dig deeper, and it becomes a story about disrupting the past to improve the future. That is literally the opposite of what current conservative politics preach. The musical leans into diversity, scientific curiosity, and the idea that change is good. It celebrates personal growth, rewriting harmful narratives, and standing up against bullies. It is fun, yes, but it is also hopeful in a way that embraces progress over regression. That’s a big no-no for the “Make America Great Again” crowd who want to return to some mythical version of the 1950s.
Moulin Rouge! The Musical
Welcome to a glittery world of artists, sex workers, dreamers, and outsiders. This show is about as “anti-traditional” as it gets. It is a celebration of freedom, love, and authenticity. It centers a dying woman who owns her story. It celebrates queerness even when it’s coded, and puts sensuality, agency, and art on a pedestal. And it does it all while remixing pop hits by Sia, Adele, and Lady Gaga in a Parisian nightclub run by misfits. If that’s not a fever dream of fabulous resistance, I don’t know what is.
The Outsiders
Based on S. E. Hinton’s classic novel, this new musical adaptation dives headfirst into class conflict, poverty, and systemic neglect. It is about young people finding strength in each other when the world fails them. It is about the violence born of inequality and the choice to be better. And at its core, it is about boys loving each other with tenderness in a way that defies toxic masculinity. The Trump agenda might call this leftist propaganda. I call it human.
Spamalot
This one might seem like a left-field inclusion, but let’s not forget that Spamalot has been bending gender, mocking authority, and embracing joyful absurdity since it first hit the stage. The whole show is a tongue-in-cheek takedown of toxic masculinity, organized religion, nationalism, and the patriarchy—all while singing about fish slapping and brave Sir Robin.
So yes, the Kennedy Center may have a new chairman in Donald Trump, who wants fewer “woke” shows and more cats dancing in junkyards. But this season says otherwise.
Message to Donald: Theatre doesn’t exist to coddle fragile egos. It exists to push, provoke, and connect. And if that makes it “woke,” then maybe it’s time more people woke up.