"Today, as always," he told a glittering crowd that included opera singer Marian Anderson and an 8-year-old cello prodigy named Yo-Yo Ma, "art knows no national boundaries. Genius can speak in any tongue, and the entire world will hear it. And listen."

For that reason, it has always striven to represent everyone — its board bipartisan, evenly split between Democratic and Republican members — and its programming broad, from bluegrass to hip-hop, drawing room comedy to avant-garde happening.

2. Why is President Trump taking control?

Trump has a tangled history with the Center. In his first term, he skipped the Kennedy Center Honors ceremony when some honorees declined to meet him for a reception at the White House. He ended up skipping all four years, the first president ever to do that. But his post on his social media platform, Truth Social, doesn't mention that backstory. He says that he's firing the Board chairman [Carlyle Investment Group co-founder David Rubenstein] and other members who "do not share our vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture." He didn't specify who else he fired, but the membership includes singer Jon Batiste and Grey's Anatomycreator Shonda Rhimes. What the president didmention as a rationale was a claim that "Just last year, the Kennedy Center featured Drag Shows specifically targeting our youth — THIS WILL STOP."

Performing Arts

Trump plans to name himself chair of Kennedy Center, fire board members

I looked back through last year's bookings and there were a couple of drag brunches in the Center's rooftop restaurant, a lip-synched Drag Salute to Divasat its free Millennium stage, and a single full-fledged production: comedian Kris Andersson's silly solo show Dixie's Tupperware Party. All those shows are aimed at adult crowds. But Dixie's Tupperware Partyplayed at the Center's 324-seat Family Theater, so named to make it sound more inviting than the much larger Opera House and Concert Hall, each of which has more than 2,000 seats. The theater's moniker is, for the record, just a name — I've caught lectures and films at the "Family" Theater, just as I've seen concerts and plays at the "Opera" House.

Analysis

What does Trump mean when he invokes America's 'Manifest Destiny'?

3. Where do things go from here?

That's all President Trump has mentioned so far, but the Kennedy Center's top brass got a letter on Jan. 24, just four days into the new administration, from two Republican congressmen — Rep. Christopher Smith of New Jersey and Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan — accusing the Center of "subsidizing Chinese Communist Party propaganda" by presenting a five-day run of performances by the National Ballet of China. So that might be a hint of things to come. It's sobering if you remember that, at the height of the Cold War, the Center brought the Bolshoi Ballet from Russia, so it's kind of baked into its DNA.