Curtains Up, Gloves Off: Protest and Performance at the Kennedy Center
On a warm June evening in Washington D.C., the curtain rose on Les Misérables. But inside the Kennedy Center—once the crown jewel of American cultural prestige—the true spectacle was unfolding in the audience.
Photo: X / @suzy_1776
Former President Donald Trump, now controversially overseeing the institution after ousting its leadership and installing loyalists, arrived with the air of a man expecting a standing ovation. Instead, he walked into a live act of resistance. Boos drowned out cheers. Chants surged and sputtered. Someone reportedly shouted an obscenity at intermission. Supporters responded with cries of “USA,” turning the theatre into an ideological tug of war.
And then came the drag queens.
These were not part of the evening’s entertainment. They were protesters—resplendent, defiant, seated front and centre. Not merely seen, but staged. Drag has long been the expressive edge of queer identity, and this month—Pride Month—its presence was politically potent. With both the US and UK witnessing legislative rollbacks on trans rights and restrictions on drag performances, these artists were more than audience members. They were the message.
As drag performer Vagenesis later put it, “It felt like we were making art in real time, just by being there.” That wasn’t just commentary—it was manifesto. Their presence was performance. Their stillness, a roar.
Backstage, a quieter but equally powerful protest took shape. Reports suggest that ten of the twelve lead cast members refused to perform that night. Their absence drew a line in the sand: art, they asserted, should not be performed at the pleasure of power. The show went on, covered by understudies, but the gesture was unmistakable. This was solidarity.
It would be easy to interpret the night as a one-off, a bizarre collision of politics and pageantry. But Les Misérables has never been subtle. It is a tale of injustice, uprising, and the collective voice of the oppressed. To witness Trump—whose critics accuse him of undermining democratic institutions and marginalising dissent—watching this particular musical, amidst boos and drag queens, felt almost Shakespearean in its irony.
There’s a familiarity here for Welsh audiences too. We understand the power of protest art—whether on Eisteddfod stages, in Valleys community halls, or on makeshift platforms built from necessity and resolve. From Y Mab Darogan to modern youth theatre that confronts identity, inequality, and language politics, Wales has long used performance as a form of defiance. And as UK culture funding faces scrutiny and safe spaces for queer expression grow rarer, the question for us is not whether art can be political—it’s whether it can afford not to be.
What happened that night wasn’t just resistance. It was theatre. And the theatre, as Wales’ own cultural landscape knows well, has always been a place where protest finds its poetry.
In the UK too, we are seeing how cultural spaces are being drawn into wider conflicts over identity, equity, and expression. The parallels are not distant. Whether it’s defunding, censorship, or gatekeeping disguised as governance, the arts are increasingly politicised terrain. And when culture becomes a battleground, those who perform, curate, and attend must decide whether to merely applaud—or to act.
That evening at the Kennedy Center, protest didn’t look like placards. It looked like mascara and sequins and absence. It sounded like off-script boos and unsanctioned silence. It asked the oldest question any piece of theatre has ever posed: *Do you hear the people sing*?