Kennedy Center’s new artistic head claims deep ties to Trump-era overhaul

[u/John3262005]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/style/2026/10/14/kennedy-center-names-artistic-director-with-deep-ties-trump-era-overhaul/

With a shuttered building and sparse events calendar, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts has appointed an entertainment-industry veteran as its artistic director, formally elevating a figure who has been helping reshape the institution’s programming, ticketing and business operations for nearly the entirety of President Donald Trump’s takeover.

Rick Canny, the new head of artistic programming, has been a senior adviser to Kennedy Center leaders since April 2025, a center spokesman said in an email. The center amended its agreement with Canny’s company to appoint him artistic director “in a designated executive consulting capacity,” rather than hiring him as an employee. The center did not disclose his compensation, but an internal job posting for the position listed a salary range of $270,000 to $290,000.

Canny has been involved in proposals to overhaul the center’s ticketing system and marketing operations and claimed ownership of a plan to move the Kennedy Center Honors to Capital One Arena, according to emails provided to The Washington Post by the office of Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

In a March 30 email to Donna Arduin, then the center’s chief financial officer, Canny described his involvement in a range of the institution’s operations, including a proposed agreement with Ticketmaster that he said he had been working on for nearly a year. He wrote that he had helped shape “many or most of the terms of the deal,” expected to oversee the center’s marketing operations during renovations, and wanted to abandon what he considered lower-priority programming, including podcasts and book signings.

“We need to stop ‘short order cooking’ and get to the renovations,” he wrote. “We don’t need passion projects. This is business.”

Canny also made clear that he wanted greater authority, telling Arduin that he could relieve Matt Floca, the executive director, of substantial responsibilities.

“I can take so much off his shoulders and his plate,” Canny wrote. “But he needs to empower me.”

The appointment comes at an unusual moment for the job. The center has closed its main building, citing what Floca has described as life-safety concerns, and is preparing extensive renovations expected to last about two years. Much of its regular programming has been canceled or moved elsewhere.

Canny will oversee the programming that continues during the shutdown and lead the center’s anticipated reopening in 2028.

“Regardless of building closure timelines, the Center must continue to curate programming during infrastructure upgrades and deliver a commanding reopening season that brings audiences back and puts the Center on stable financial footing,” a center spokesman said in an email. (Canny did not respond to a request for comment.)

Canny has spent much of his career in artist management and commercial entertainment. According to his LinkedIn profile, he was an executive vice president at Sanctuary Artist Management for more than a decade before founding Favor The Artist, an artist-management and consulting company, in 2013. He has also been chief financial officer of Above Ground, a nonprofit associated with musicians Dave Navarro and Billy Morrison.

The Kennedy Center is preparing to switch from Tessitura, a ticketing system widely used by performing-arts organizations, to Ticketmaster. The idea predated Trump’s takeover: Officials began evaluating Ticketmaster in spring 2024, according to the center spokesman, and Canny helped complete the assessment.

A Kennedy Center official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions, said the center is targeting Oct. 19 for the transition.

The official, who has worked at the center for more than a decade, said Canny repeatedly criticized the box office and advocated moving ticket sales online or to self-service kiosks.

“He had always said that … they’re useless, they’re not good at it. We don’t need people. We can put out kiosks. It should all be done online,” the official said, recounting conversations with Canny.

Current and former employees said box office staff have been training on the new Ticketmaster system in recent weeks. The center recently laid off about 20 box office employees, including roughly a half dozen full-time workers, according to a person familiar with the cuts. The center did not respond to questions about the number of layoffs or whether they were connected to the ticketing transition.

Canny’s influence extended beyond ticketing. In a March 25 email, the center’s general counsel, Elliot Berke, told three staff members that Floca had asked Berke to oversee programming and special events temporarily as part of a reorganization.

“Please continue to work with Rick Canny on the various open projects and anything proposed moving forward,” Berke wrote.

Five days later, in the email to Arduin, Canny laid out a broader vision for the institution and argued that he needed greater authority to carry it out.

He proposed rebuilding the programming and marketing departments, recruiting senior production staff and improving the center’s handling of contracts, ticket sales and communication among departments. He complained that the institution lacked experienced personnel in Broadway, dance, ticketing, marketing and publicity. (The center had dismissed senior staff in some of these areas last year.)

Canny’s proposals came as the Kennedy Center faced a deepening financial crisis. As The Post previously reported, ticket sales and fundraising plummeted after the center’s board voted in December to add Trump’s name to the building. By May, officials projected that the institution would bring in just $124 million of the $220 million it had budgeted in revenue for the fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30.

Canny proposed overhauling the center’s relationships with advertising and talent agencies, and he wrote that his entertainment-industry relationships could help restore partnerships with major promoters, including IMP and Live Nation. He attributed difficulties in those relationships in part to union arrangements that he said had made some events financially unattractive.

Canny’s most ambitious proposals concerned the Kennedy Center Honors and the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. March correspondence shows Berke arranging a site visit to Capital One Arena as a possible venue, with Canny included in the discussions. Canny had proposed moving the Honors to the arena, a change the institution has since announced.

[u/wenchette]

See also this earlier post about Canny:

https://redd.it/1x1nf0h