Kennedy Center staffers called security last week after DC’s Log Cabin Republicans chapter disrupted a performance by a musician they called “a vocal opponent of President Trump.”
Yasmin Williams, an Alexandria-based and globally hailed guitarist, made headlines earlier this year for sparring by email with new Kennedy Center president Ric Grenell. She nonetheless honored her pre-Trump-takeover contract to perform at the Millennium Stage on September 18. All was going well until about five minutes before curtain, when theater staffers learned that 50 passes had been set aside for men purportedly intent on heckling, booing, and harassing Williams.
“They said they were concerned for my safety,” Williams tells Washingtonian.
Those seats were reserved for the Log Cabin Republicans by Grenell’s office, multiple Kennedy Center employees said. A member of Grenell’s staff even distributed passes and welcomed the men as they arrived, a current staffer confirmed for Washingtonian.
Williams was stunned. “All of a sudden, all these security officers rolled up,” she says. After taking the stage with her custom guitar, she realized why the officers were present. “There were about 20 guys in suits, and some of them were wearing MAGA hats,” Williams says.
Red-hatted Trump supporters have become much more common at the Kennedy Center since Trump installed himself as board chairman in February, but a current staffer says the atmosphere at Williams’s concert was different. “There was so much tension,” the Kennedy Center employee says.
Reached via email, Log Cabin Republicans of DC president Andrew Manik said he had “no comment to offer” Washingtonian. Roma Daravi, the Kennedy Center’s vice president for communications, declined to answer questions on the record.
Free Millennium Stage performances take place most evenings at 6 PM, outside either the Concert Hall or the Eisenhower Theater. Tickets are required to guarantee chairs. Thursday, half a dozen security guards surrounded the seating area, and three more monitored the Hall of States, where members of the Log Cabin group entered. About 20 men took seats, and 30 more lingered nearby, the staffer working that night said.
“I’ve been grappling with whether to do this show for a while,” Williams said from the stage while strumming her instruments. “Well, I’m here.” As she looked out, Williams said she saw many fans and family, plus current and former Kennedy Center staffers who knew of her email exchange with Grenell, including National Symphony Orchestra musicians who wore union T-shirts.
“Shout-out to the union!” Williams said. Millennium Stage staff assured the guitarist her livestream would not be censored as long as she was playing while speaking. (Video of the concert remains online.) A chorus of boos rang out when she mentioned not being “a fan of Ric Grenell.” One man complained loudly that she should mention Charlie Kirk.
“They booed and heckled me,” Williams says of the disrupters. “They tried to derail my concert, but fortunately they were outnumbered.” After about 15 minutes, the protesters relocated to the opposite end of the Kennedy Center’s Grand Foyer. Williams then played a serene series of original acoustic numbers, praised Kennedy Center employees, and closed out with an “F.U. to Trump.”
It would take another 24 hours or so before Williams, her management team, and concerned Kennedy Center staffers pieced together who the boobirds were: a group of gay Republicans with close ties to Grenell’s office.
In a newsletter that has since been widely circulated on social media, Manik outlined the group’s plan to disrupt Williams’s performance because she is a “liberal” and “a vocal opponent of President Trump.”
“We’re looking forward to seeing you tonight at our monthly meeting at The Kennedy Center rooftop terrace,” Manik’s email began. He went on to disparage Williams and urged guests to arrive early for the 6 PM concert, which served as a prelude to the 7 PM meeting. “Let’s make sure the audience is filled with Patriots,” he wrote.
The Kennedy Center was a “new location” announced just two days before the September meeting, according to the DC Log Cabin Republicans’ Instagram account. Although the post promised an “open bar,” Manik’s email instead offered drink tickets for the Kennedy Center’s bars on a “first-come, first-served” basis.
That offer is significant, a former Kennedy Center staffer explained to Washingtonian, because unlike most other venues in the area, the Kennedy Center contracts out concessions. If the center wants to offer drink tickets, top-level administrators have to purchase vouchers from Restaurant Associates, the independent food-service operator.
Manik’s email also indicated that the Kennedy Center’s new leadership has cast aside longstanding policies against holding “purely political” events that include a “call to action” at the Kennedy Center. Such events were prohibited even when space was rented out, multiple current and former staffers said, but new leadership seems to allow political events on a regular basis.
After the concert, Log Cabin members planned to gather on the Kennedy Center’s rooftop terrace, “for a discussion on the policy battles ahead and the importance of keeping the majority strong for President Trump’s agenda,” Manik wrote. Two Republican members of Congress—US representatives Nicole Malliotakis of New York and Carlos Giménez of Florida—were scheduled to speak.
Kennedy Center executive vice president Rick Lougherty and vice president for governance Nick Meade both have a long history with the Log Cabin Republicans, a group founded nearly 50 years ago to support gay teachers in California. Meade was president of California’s Coachella Valley chapter until February, according to his LinkedIn profile, and Lougherty, the former recorder of deeds for Chester County, Pennsylvania, has spoken at Log Cabin events across the country. Both are also close with Grenell. In August, Lougherty posted a photo on Instagram that shows all three men relaxing together in Porto Montenegro.
Williams says that the more she learned about the men who disrupted her concert, the more disappointed she’s become, which is not to say she regrets opening her fall tour—which resumes next week with concerts in Elkton and Annapolis—at the Kennedy Center. Past and present employees have “poured their heart and souls into this building every day” and “made it the prestigious place that it was,” Williams said from the stage. “Sadly, I have to say ‘was’ because of the hostile takeover.”
