Kennedy Center will be ‘prosperous again,’ Grenell says

Kennedy Center interim Director Richard Grenell is developing a “common sense” plan to turn the center’s financials around and make it “prosperous again,” as it grapples with $72 million of debt due to past leadership decisions.

“The Kennedy Center is the premier arts institution in the United States,” Grenell told Fox News Digital. “It deserves to have the public’s full support and a balance sheet that is solid.”

Sources familiar with the Kennedy Center’s current financials told Fox News Digital that it had been “budgeting to lose money.”

But Grenell brought in a new chief financial officer, Donna Arduin, who is tasked with improving what she has described as a “dire situation.”

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“The Kennedy Center’s previous business plan was made to leave the Center in the red and it did just that,” Arduin told Fox News Digital. “The previous leadership were left with no other option than to pay employees’ salaries with monies supposed to be allocated for the debt reserves.”

Arduin told Fox News Digital that the “gross mismanagement created a dire situation that we were shocked to discover.”

In Fiscal Year 2025, the Kennedy Center is operating on a $234 million budget. Also, in FY25, the Kennedy Center had an operating deficit of $105.2 million dollars, which left a bottom-line deficit of $7.2 million dollars.

Sources familiar with the numbers told Fox News Digital that the gap was filled with Kennedy Center fundraising dollars–$91 million from annual fundraising, and $7 million from earnings on the endowments.

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Sources familiar with the leadership team’s plans told Fox News Digital that the plan will focus on getting rid of debt, improving on ticket sales and fundraising, and growing the center’s endowments.

A source explained that the team will use the venue for profitable business events other than traditional shows and performances and will begin offering alternative programming.

“There are a lot of opportunities and we are pursuing all of them,” the source said.

The Kennedy Center has two affiliates—the National Symphony Orchestra and the Washington National Opera. The new leadership team is currently working on business plans with its affiliates to ensure the Kennedy Center has larger endowments and “greater sustainability.”

The official endowments combined total just $163 million, which new leadership told Fox News Digital is “not adequate for the size of this institution.”

Under the last leadership team, the Kennedy Center built “The REACH,” an intimate theater at the Kennedy Center hosting concerts, comedy shows, and poetry readings. It also has a restaurant.

But sources familiar with the financials told Fox News Digital that former leadership took out a significant chunk of debt to build the venue—costing the center nearly $200 million.

“There wasn’t a profitability plan for that,” the source explained, noting that thus far, the space has been “underutilized,” bringing in just $2 million per year.

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“America’s premier institution for the arts deserves better,” Arduin said. “The new team has already written a responsible budget that will make us prosperous again.”

She added: “We are using common sense.”

President Trump in January fired the theater’s board of directors and announced he had been elected board chair by his new handpicked board. 

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told the Wall Street Journal in January: “The Kennedy Center learned the hard way that if you go woke, you will go broke. President Trump and the members of his newly-appointed board are devoted to rebuilding the Kennedy Center into a thriving and highly respected institution where all Americans, and visitors from around the world, can enjoy the arts with respect to America’s great history and traditions.”

Some groups who disagreed with the move decided to cancel shows at the center. 

Producers of Broadway’s “Hamilton” pulled out of a planned run there next year.

“Our show simply cannot, in good conscience, participate and be a part of this new culture that is being imposed on the Kennedy Center,” producer Jeffrey Seller said earlier this month. 

The show was performed at the Kennedy Center during Trump’s first term in office. 

Grenell told Sean Hannity earlier this month that “everyone is welcome” at the Kennedy Center. 

“Look, the reality is, the Kennedy Center is open for business for everyone,” Grenell told Hannity. “We just want an arts center that celebrates the arts — we want common-sense art.”