Hey Donald, There’s No Such Thing as a “Non-Woke” Musical

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by Chris Peterson, OnStage Blog Founder

According to a leaked board meeting recording, Donald Trump recently announced that he wants to bring “non-woke” musicals to the Kennedy Center. What does that even mean? Does he want to ban Hamilton and replace it with The Music Man? Bad news—The Music Man is about a con artist who learns the value of education. Not exactly the anthem for a crowd that celebrates “alternative facts.”

Here’s the thing: there’s no such thing as a “non-woke” musical. The entire art form is built on empathy, change, and progress. Every great musical—yes, even the classics conservatives love—has something to say about justice, equality, and human dignity.

Let’s go back to the so-called “Golden Age.” Oklahoma!? You think it’s just folksy Americana? It’s about a woman’s right to choose her future and has a subplot about mental health and consent. South Pacific? That show literally stops the action to deliver a lesson about how racism is learned, not inherent. (And yes, people tried to censor it at the time—so much for nostalgia.)

Fast forward a bit—West Side Story is about racial prejudice, Fiddler on the Roof is about refugees and tradition in the face of oppression, Cabaret warns against ignoring the rise of fascism. These aren’t subtle messages. They’re baked into the DNA of these shows.

Even the biggest blockbuster musicals of the modern era aren’t “non-woke.” Les Misérables? A love letter to revolution. The Phantom of the Opera? A story about power, obsession, and outsiders. These shows weren’t written to make audiences feel comfortable—they were written to challenge, to provoke, to make people feel something.

Trump used Cats as an example of a “non-woke” musical, which proves to me that he’s never seen the show. Cats is all about acceptance, redemption, and the complexities of identity. It asks audiences to reflect on their biases and reminds us that redemption and compassion should always defeat judgment. If that’s not “woke,” I don’t know what is.

So what exactly does a “non-woke” musical look like? One that ignores race, gender, class, and power dynamics? One that refuses to make audiences think? At that point, it’s not a musical—it’s just propaganda with a show tune.

Even the musicals that seem the most “safe” aren’t free of social commentary. 1776 confronts the hypocrisy of America’s founding. Hello, Dolly! is about a working-class woman taking charge of her life. And let’s not forget The Sound of Music, a staple of American musical theatre, which is literally about standing up to fascism. If anything, Trump should be terrified of that one.

Musical theatre has always been about progress. It’s about seeing the world through someone else’s eyes. It’s about imagining something better. That’s why the idea of a “non-woke” musical is absurd. It doesn’t exist. It never has.

At the end of the day, theatre has always been on the side of the revolution. And no matter how hard anyone tries to rewrite history, the overture has already started.