Kennedy Center: “Christmas in Belfast” Starts Tonight, Has Few Takers, Same for “Christ” Concert as Trump Takeover Shunned

Tonight at the Kennedy Center, “Christmas in Belfast” starts shows through Sunday.

Want to go? Why not? The theater is brimming with available tickets at all prices, on all levels, at all times.

Few people are coming to see the show performed by Irish tenors famous on PBS.

Even fewer people are coming on December 17th to see “Noel: Jesus is Born!”

That’s the show tricky Dick Grenell, Trump’s lackey, personally promoted in Catholic magazines as his big Christmas epic.

Seat maps show not only few tickets sold in the orchestra sections, but almost nothing in the balcony for any of these shows.

Under Grenell, the Kennedy Center has ground to a halt.

The good news is that Grenell has given the place away next Friday, December 5th, to FIFA, the World Cup Soccer organization. They’re going to have their draft picks, and give Donald Trump a phony baloney Peace Prize.

Grenell says FIFA is donating $7.4 million to the Kennedy Center, but it’s really just $2.4 million, with “opportunities” of another $5 million in sponsorships.

Under Grenell, Trump brags about big donations to the Kennedy Center, not understanding the purpose of a not for profit arts institution. Donations are great, but you need people supporting programs. You need full theaters. Grenell is gloating about cutting the Kennedy Center staff to ribbons, not caring he can’t fill seats.

Trump, an ignoramus, doesn’t get that part of the deal. No one is coming. Even National Symphony Orchestra subscribers are turned off by Grenell kicking them out to put on the FIFA event.

Meantime, the US Senate is investigating how Grenell has been running the place, questioning the giving away of the theaters for pro-Trump political events.

“Contracts, invoices, and facility use agreements reveal that you operate the Center for the enrichment of your friends and acquaintances, to dole out political favors, and as a playground for the President of the United States and his allies,” Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Ranking Member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, wrote to Grenell. 

Whitehouse continued: “The Center is being looted to the tune of millions of dollars in foregone revenue, cancelled programming, unpaid use of its facilities, and wasteful spending on luxury restaurants and hotels—an unprecedented pattern of self-dealing, favoritism, and waste.”

Here are a couple of seat maps. I should note that I’ve written twice about “Noel” in the last week, that it wasn’t selling, and nothing has changed.

PS The Kennedy Center Honors are Sunday night, December 7th. There’s no information on what’s happening, or how Trump — who’s supposed to host the show — is filling the theater. Please email me at showbiz411@gmail.com in confidence, with tips.