The newly appointed senior vice-president of artistic programming at Washington DC’s John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Kevin Couch, has resigned less than two weeks after his hiring was announced.
Couch confirmed he “resigned yesterday” in a statement to the Guardian on Thursday.
The Kennedy Center announced that it had appointed Couch to the role on 16 January, and shared the announcement on social media on 22 January.
“We are proud to welcome Kevin Couch to the Trump Kennedy Center as we expand our commonsense programming,” said Richard Grenell, the center’s interim president, at the time. “Kevin brings a clear-eyed approach to curating a roster of compelling shows that invite and inspire all audiences.”
On Wednesday, Couch, who recently served as director of programming for ATG Entertainment and is the founder of the Dallas-based branding agency CBC creative, confirmed to the Washington Post and the New York Times that he left the position. He declined to give a reason for his resignation.
The Kennedy Center did not respond to a request for comment from the Guardian. As of Thursday morning, Couch’s name does not appear on the center’s website page where it lists “Executive Leadership & Artistic Partners”.
Couch’s abrupt resignation comes amid recent turmoil at the Kennedy Center following a leadership overhaul initiated by Donald Trump since the start of his second term. Last year, Trump installed a new board of trustees at the center, and he was elected to be the new chair.
The changes have prompted a wave of artists to cancel their performances. Earlier this week, the celebrated US composer Philip Glass announced that he had pulled the world premiere of his latest symphony at the Kennedy Center in protest of Trump’s presidency. Earlier this month, the Washington National Opera said it was moving its performances out of the venue.
In December, the center’s new board of trustees, handpicked by Trump, voted to rename the world-renowned institution the “Trump-Kennedy Center”. However, the venue is, by law, designated the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and was built to be a living memorial to the former president, according to the New York Times. The paper noted it had been generally understood that any change to the center’s name would require congressional approval.
Meanwhile, in October, several months into Trump’s takeover of the institution, reports indicated that ticket sales for the Kennedy Center’s three largest performance spaces had fallen to their lowest levels in years.
