Inside the Department

Broadcast

The Broadcast Media department oversees the Kennedy Center’s annual broadcast events – The Kennedy Center Honors and The Mark Twain Prize for American Humor – as well as the Next at the Kennedy Center series on PBS. Additionally, the team is essential in furthering the Kennedy Center’s broadcast ambitions and its mission to showcase the depth, breadth and plethora of mediums the Kennedy Center presents and produces.

Dance

The Dance Programming department at the Kennedy Center presents 13-16 dance companies on our mainstages each season. From ballet, to modern, to tap, and other forms of dance, this team works across the Center’s Opera House, Eisenhower and Terrace Theaters, as well as a variety of spaces in our REACH expansion campus. In addition to these large scale engagements, Dance Programming manages the Center’s Local Dance Commissioning Project award and curates our annual National Dance Day celebration.

International Programming

The International Programming department presents exciting and large scale International festivals that include performances, exhibits, literature, film, fashion, culinary and design. In addition, the department presents art series (with focus on the performing and visual arts and the environment).

In 2023, the Center announced a 10-year plan for environment-themed programming, headlined by a slate of biennial international festivals, curated by the International Programming team.

Production

On any given day, the Production Department is managing a mix of 40-50 rehearsals, shows, events or tours on the Kennedy Center’s stages, rehearsal rooms, special event areas and outdoor spaces. Working with a team that includes Washington National Opera and the National Symphony Orchestra, the Vice President of Production supervises members of three theatrical unions including stagehands, wardrobe, and hair and make-up on over 2000 shows and events a year. The overall production department permanent staff—including production managers, stagehands, wardrobe technicians, and building service crew—numbers over forty. The work of the department ranges from the set-up of rehearsal rooms to complicated, full productions, such as the televised Kennedy Center Honors, or the mounting of multi-venue festivals over several weeks.

Theater

The Theater Programming department at the Kennedy Center works collaboratively to both present and produce quality theatrical productions. Past presented shows include pre-Broadway engagements of numerous iconic musicals and thrilling revivals that transferred directly to Broadway. This team also produces the critically acclaimed Broadway Center Stage series where they work with talent direct from Broadway to create limited engagement, sell-out performances here in DC.

A typical Theater Programming season includes about twelve presented shows and three produced shows with over 500 curtains.

Shared Services

The Shared Services department (also known as the ‘Pod Squad’) is a dynamic, creative, and dedicated group of arts administrators in the Kennedy Center’s Programming Department. Our team includes three unique and boundary pushing teams – Chamber, Classical New Music,  and Jazz; Comedy & Institutional Programming; and Hip Hop Culture and Contemporary Music, allowing for exciting cross-discipline collaboration with an emphasis on work with Artistic Directors Renée Fleming, Jason Moran, Q-Tip, and Jennifer Koh.

The ecosystem of the shared services department requires staff to work across all genres, learning about each genre while assisting with show duty, festivals, internally produced performances and/or events, and other large-scale projects.

We are most often hosts for “one night wonders” in all of the theaters, as well as concentrated multi-day takeovers and programmatic festivals.  We are a small but mighty Team of eight (three directors, one manager, three assistant managers and a coordinator), with a mix of new-to-the-Kennedy Center employees (2 years or less) as well as some longer-term employees (five to 28 years of employment).