Last-Minute Changes at the Trump Center for Performing Arts
Guest Column by Joel Schechter
Previously, Alte’s correspondent offered an advance schedule of plays scheduled for performance at the Trump (formerly Kennedy) Center for the Performing Arts this year, but that list appears to have been withdrawn and replaced by new selections. We cannot guarantee that the plays discussed here are final choices; apparently the President is waiting to receive large, illustrated synopses of them from his advisors before consenting to their production. Unable to wait that long, we pass along a few that have been proposed. —Ed.
According to our sources, the Chairman of the Trump Center for the Performing Arts will soon announce plans to have three sensational, very huge new plays and a wrestling competition staged at his Washington, D.C. arts showcase, formerly known as the Kennedy Center. The plays are later expected to tour the country, with all expenses paid by corporate sponsors.
Following the withdrawal of the musical Hamilton from the schedule due to its diversity, equity and inclusion policies, Chairman Donald Trump is expected to replace it with the world premiere of McKinley. “This spectacular new musical,” according to an unpublished White House press release, “is based on the daring acts of a great American President sadly assassinated but not before he imposed tariffs on trade, setting a fine example for the nation’s current leadership. Most of McKinley’s songs,” press release notes, “will be sung from the top of a mountain (Mount McKinley, of course), built especially for this production. We’re literally going to raise the roof with this fantastic scenery.
“The author of play’s book and music is the great writer AI.” Indeed, Mr. Trump now spends much of his time conferring with AI and actresses about their new plays, and driving balls across golf courses. He also serves as President of the United States every Tuesday.
The same McKinley mountain will be featured four weeks later in a new, “approximating” production of Samuel Beckett’s classic Happy Days. Inspired by Beckett, AI’s play will begin with a woman named Winnie buried up to her waist in scorched earth. This part of the story actually can be found in Beckett’s original script. “I’ve been auditioning many talented actresses for the role,” Trump has written on his Social Truth site.
His assistant director (who showed us a dramaturgy degree from the Geffen, formerly Yale, School of Drama) said Beckett’s storyline has been improved by AI’s writing, based on Trump’s suggestions. The mountain on which Winnie rests now contains rare earth minerals sought by many nations, and in Act Two, which departs from Beckett’s story to follow Trump’s own plot, a tremendous deal is struck to send Winnie and her husband (who lives on the other side of her mountain) to the new Gaza Riviera, all expenses paid, while the minerals under her are mined for Tesla and for a new communications breakthrough, Muskphones, which transmit all conversations to a government eavesdropper at no additional cost to the customer.
The entire cast (all two of them) sings “Happy Days Are Here Again” before the curtain falls.
“We had some problems with the Beckett estate after they heard about our production,” a Trump Center lawyer admitted. “They objected to all the changes in his script. The song is not by Beckett, either. But we pointed out that the author [who died in 1989 —Ed.] never answered our questionnaire asking for five of his recent accomplishments and whether he promotes climate justice, DEI, or terrorism. In fact, one could argue that his original play, with its mound of scorched grass and desolate landscape, was a kind of protest against climate change.
“No longer so. In fact, I’m not supposed to use those ‘c’ words, so forget that I said them. So far no charges have been filed against the playwright.”
No copyright problems arise in the third production planned for the Trump Center’s inaugural season. The Threepenny Opera (1928) is now in the public domain, and the Center plans to take full advantage of playwright Bertolt Brecht’s absence. In the play, Mack the Knife—a notorious criminal prone to song—complains that his gang’s burglaries and other small crimes can’t compete with the large banks and corporations that legally make a killing. He wants to become a banker. No longer is Mack a criminal. In the new drama, he is pardoned by the Queen of England in Scene One, and a high court grants him immunity from all future prosecution. “With a criminal record and bank account like his, the man could be our next president,” observes Chairman Trump’s lawyer. “In fact, he is.”
The first season will close with a fabulous wrestling match, in which the President’s strongest defenders in his cabinet and Congress—even the wife of the man who started the WWE itself, who is now the Secretary of Education—will lube themselves up in “wonderful American oil drilled from our finest National Monuments” and compete for crumbs of attention.
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Joel Schechter is a frequent contributor to the ALTE substack. He taught theatre history at San Francisco State University and has written numerous books, including RADICAL YIDDISH, published by Jewish Currents some years ago. This piece was first posted on 48 Hills, a San Francisco newsletter, and is reposted with permission.