Wednesday, July 1, 2026

Kennedy Center Couldn’t Get Anyone to Put On Their Promised “Birth of Christ” Pageant After All — Just the Usual Holiday Entertainment

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This is a funny complaint because personally, I don’t care.

Do you?

After taking over the Kennedy Center last winter, Donald Trump sent lackey Richard Grenell out to do press.

In the New York Times, Grenell promised big things. Among them, a pageant about the birth of Christ for the holiday season.

Grenell said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Oxon Hill, Maryland: “How crazy is it to think that we’re going to celebrate Christ at Christmas with a big traditional production, to celebrate what we are all celebrating in the world during Christmastime, which is the birth of Christ?”

That was 9 months ago. Children have been conceived and born in that time, but no Christ pageant.

Holiday fare at the Kennedy Center will be the same as usual, like a choir singing Handel’s “Messiah.”

There’s also the traditional Christmas musical, Monty Python’s “Spamalot,” which plays all through the season.

But apparently Grenell couldn’t find anyone to do the Christ celebration. There were no takers, either making it or buying tickets to it.

In fact, as the Washington Post recently reported, ticket sales are way off at the Kennedy Center. Between the government shut down and the fact that MAGA is not really interested in cultural activities, the Kennedy Center has been hobbled by Trump and Grenell.

You can read my previous story about the Kennedy Center Honors below.

Trump Planning to Upstage Kennedy Center Honors by Giving Himself Soccer Peace Prize with Andrea Bocelli Singing Two Days Earlier

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Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman
Roger Friedman is the founder and editor-in-chief of Showbiz411. He wrote the FOX411 column on FoxNews.com from 1999 to 2009, where he covered Michael Jackson, and previously wrote the "Intelligencer" column at New York magazine in the mid-1990s, where he covered the O.J. Simpson trial. He also edited Fame magazine. His bylines have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, Vogue, Details, and the Miami Herald. He is a voting member of the Critics Choice Awards (Film and Television branches), and his movie reviews are tracked by Rotten Tomatoes. With D.A. Pennebaker and Chris Hegedus, he co-produced the 2002 documentary "Only the Strong Survive," which screened at Directors' Fortnight at the Cannes Film Festival.

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