On a bonus episode of the OnStage Colorado Podcast, the editor of DC’s leading theatre site explains what the Kennedy Center means to Washington, what’s become of it and why the DC theatre scene is definitely worth the trip.
The Kennedy Center has been making national headlines for more than a year. The Trump administration took over its board, a court ordered the president’s name removed from the building, and the administration now plans to close it for two years. But what does all that mean for the people who actually make and watch theatre in Washington?
DC Theatre Arts Editor-in-Chief Nicole Hertvik at the Kennedy Center in 2018. | Photo: Courtesy DC Theatre Arts
To find out, Alex Miller talked with Nicole Hertvik, editor of DC Theater Arts. Like OnStage Colorado, it’s a news site dedicated to covering live theatre as legacy media pulls back. Nicole covered the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors red carpet in person. She talks about what the center has lost, the broader pressures facing DC’s roughly 80 professional theatres and where she’d send a visitor looking for great theatre in the capital region.
Episode chapters
00:00 — Introduction. A brief history of the Kennedy Center, from Eleanor Roosevelt’s original vision to its 1971 opening as a memorial to President Kennedy.
01:57 — Meet Nicole Hertvik. The editor of DC Theater Arts joins the show.
02:57 — The Kennedy Center in normal times. The center’s range of programming:
- The Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra
- Touring Broadway
- The free nightly Millennium Stage
- The Page to Stage new-play festival
- A national arts-education program
- A hip-hop series
05:01 — The stages and the end of Shear Madness. The long-running farce closed after roughly 40 years, a loss for tourists and for local actors who relied on it.
06:31 — A community touchstone. Why “everyone has a Kennedy Center story,” and why Nicole disputes the claim that the building is falling apart.
09:18 — How we got here. The board takeover, Ric Grenell’s profit-first approach, artists pulling out and Nicole’s firsthand account of the 2025 Kennedy Center Honors red carpet.
13:40 — The name, the tarp and the shutdown. The name went up on the building, came down under court order at 3 a.m. behind a tarp that is still up, and was followed by the announced closure.
14:58 — Hands Around the Kennedy Center. Protests led by former staffers grew from a few dozen people to a human chain of about 2,500.
16:31 — Pressures on DC theatre. The lingering financial toll of COVID, The Washington Post scaling back its theatre criticism and a generation of founding artistic directors retiring. Nicole also points to a hopeful sign: four new theatres launched this year.
18:43 — DC as a theatre destination. Why “politics isn’t the only theatre in DC.”
20:30 — Inside DC Theater Arts. How the site moved from for-profit to nonprofit, how it pays and trains its writers and how it helps new critics break into the field.
24:06 — Political plays in a political town? Why artists can no longer ignore the moment, and why the plays responding to it may still be a few years off.
25:57 — Theatre road-trip picks. Nicole’s must-visit theatres in DC, Virginia and Maryland:
- DC: Arena Stage, Ford’s Theatre, Woolly Mammoth, Studio Theatre and Folger Theatre
- Virginia: Signature Theatre
- Maryland: Olney Theatre Center and Round House Theatre
28:42 — The best-case outcome. Nicole’s hopes for the building, its archives and the artists who have scattered, plus the practical hurdles of bringing seasons back.
31:01 — Wrap-up.
Links mentioned
Alex Miller is editor and publisher of OnStage Colorado. He has a long background in journalism, including stints as the top editor at the Vail Daily, Summit Daily News, Summit County Journal, Vail Trail and others. He’s also been an actor, director, playwright, artistic director and theatre board member and has been covering theatre in Colorado since 1995.
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