Arts Editor’s Note: The following press release, an unclassified document obtained by Joel Schechter, is attributed to the former Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts PR department. We haven’t been able to verify its authenticity, but it seemed important enough that we’ve foregone the usual careful background and fact check (all the rage these days) to break some previously unreported developments in one of the nation’s leading theatre centers. Plays described here may arrive at a San Francisco theatre later this year, accompanied by a fleet of gently encouraging military drones.
For Immediate Release
Trump Announces First Season of Plays at His New Performing Arts Center
March 1, 2025
With remarkable speed, President Donald Trump has chosen and announced the first season of plays to be performed at Washington DC’s Trump Center for the Performing Arts. The corporate-subsidized arts complex formerly known as the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was renamed last month in honor of its new Chairman (Trump) shortly after he single-handedly took charge of the institution in February.
To inaugurate his first season at the Center, the Chairman (who puts in some time as President of the United States when not in rehearsals) commissioned a series of new plays. “All classics,” he said, “they will all be classics once we write them.” While Trump is not known to have attended much legitimate theatre in the past (“Who needs legitimate?” he asks), the Center’s new associate director and chief dramaturg, Elon Musk, has hired several Space X programmers to compose new plays with an AI computer system. “AI is the Shakespeare of our time,” said Musk, “or I should say, Shakespeare was the AI of his time.”
Trump Center Chairman Trump is pleased to announce that these plays and the theatre’s first season will be funded entirely by CEOs of Meta, Amazon, Google, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Shell Oil, and 12 other wealthy men whose support he invited. “I’m giving these guys big tax breaks,” said Trump, “and they give me something money can’t buy. No, that’s not true, their money is buying it.”
The first season’s plays are not yet written; but after the President and Musk told AI what they wanted, AI provided these titles and plot summaries:
All Hail Lear! This improvement of a hoary play by Bard Shakespeare opens with a heroic 78-year old monarch deciding not to divide his kingdom, but to enlarge it by taking over France, Panama, Greenland, Gaza, and a few other countries. The conquering troops, consisting of five thousand armed American soldiers in uniform on stage and outside the building guarding its perimeter, will be provided by the Pentagon as part of its new domestic deployment program.
Godot Arrives! Tired of waiting for a savior, two former tramps named Vance and Johnson welcome the arrival of a golden-haired government official who promises to turn their barren countryside into a beautiful tax-free resort full of luxury housing, casinos, perfect golf courses and the world’s biggest McDonalds.
Singing in the Atmospheric River! This new play based on a popular film discovers the bright side of rainstorms, floods, heat waves, rain-soaked wildfires and other climate changes. Clad in raincoats of all colors, the cast sings and dances to tunes such as “Somewhere Over the Rainbow There’s the Pot of Gold,” “These Waterproof Trump-Endorsed Facsimile Leather Boots Were Made for Walking!” and “Stormy’s Weather.”
Forget Hamilton! This uni-racial musical about the rise of a great American President follows him from humble beginnings as his father’s rent collector in Queens, proudly discriminating against families of color, to his triumphant election for three terms (2016-2028). Songs include “I’m a Proud Boy,” “Where’s My Roy Cohn?” and “I’m Selling the Constitution to the Highest Bidder!”
The first very huge, much better season’s seats are already sold out (sad), with all tickets purchased by Elon Musk for friends and his employees—the remaining ten thousand Federal workers—with federal grant money that is not at all wasteful because Elon is using it. But you can still see the all the plays, if you can afford the briskly trading secondary market prices for tickets (starting at $500 balcony with steep discounts for Republican voters, bitcoin absolutely not accepted). The touring company’s Trump Family Benefit Productions will soon be arriving in a theatre near you.
Joel Schechter once taught theatre history at San Francisco State University.
