Seattle Children’s Theater withdraws from upcoming production at the Kennedy Center

Seattle Children’s Theater is withdrawing from an upcoming two-week run of shows at the John F. Kennedy Center for Performing Arts in Washington D.C.

The theater company was slated to bring a new play, “Young Dragon: A Bruce Lee Story,” to the Kennedy Center for several shows in April, after a Feb. 20 premiere in Seattle. The production was co-commissioned by the Kennedy Center, and has been in development for two years.

In a statement shared by the organization Tuesday morning, Seattle Children’s Theater Managing Director Kevin Malgesini said the “landscape in which the Young Dragon was originally created has changed” and the theater has determined that “this is not the right time to transfer a SCT production to the Kennedy Center.”

Several artists have cancelled shows at the Kennedy Center during the second Trump administration; some have cited the White House’s decision to “purge” staff and change programming at the Kennedy Center.

The Kennedy Center did not immediately respond to KUOW’s request for comment.

In an interview with KUOW on Monday afternoon, Malgesini said that as the start of Young Dragon rehearsals approached, the production team “needed to really have deeper conversations about what the future of this title looks like.”

The decision to halt the upcoming D.C. run was made after several meetings with SCT staff, actors, staff at the Kennedy Center, and the family of Bruce Lee.

“We just wanted to take the time to really hear from everybody and consider the impacts, particularly the impacts on the artists who are planning on those two weeks of work in D.C.,” Malgesini said.

Keiko Green is the playwright behind “Young Dragon” and says the decision comes with complicated emotions. As a biracial, Asian American kid growing up in the south, Green said it was rare for her to see herself represented on stage.

“For a long time, I was very much on the, ‘We should go, we should do it’,” Green said. “There’s material in the show that felt like a piece of activism in itself, that would be really amazing to share.”

One scene in particular was brought up in conversations weighing the “pros and cons” of doing the show or pulling it, according to Green.

Just like in real life, “Young Dragon” follows a young Bruce Lee as he moves from Hong Kong to Seattle. Lee meets a young Black man named Jesse Glover and teaches him how to fight, after Glover tells him he wants to protect himself against police brutality.

“Bruce hears [Jesse’s] story; he ends with [the] line ‘I think I learned something new about how America works every day,'” Green said.

Even though Green stands by SCT’s decision, the decision making process evoked tricky questions.

“Are we silencing ourselves to make a larger point?” Green recalled. “That’s been a big piece of baggage.”

The next chapter for ‘Young Dragon’

Under their agreement with the Kennedy Center, SCT would produce “Young Dragon” on their own and retain full artistic control. After opening in Seattle, the Kennedy Center would pay SCT $80,000 to cover costs tied to shipping the show’s set and costumes to the east coast. The Kennedy Center would also use that money to pay the salaries of six Young Dragon performers and three understudies.

“SCT is taking a financial hit by canceling the extension,” Malgesini said. “That’s a reality we’ll need to deal with.”

There is a possibility that the show’s local run could be extended to close that financial gap. “Young Dragon” has sold out all of its school shows already, according to Malgesini, and he believes a “best-case scenario” could play out if the public shows up too.

Johamy Morales, the artistic director for Seattle Children’s, called the production’s journey over the last week a “reflection” of some of the lessons Bruce Lee’s life gives audiences. Morales recalled a conversation with Bruce Lee’s daughter, Shannon Lee, in which she shared that her dad described the act of living as also an act of creativity.

“My hope is that through this, we’re able to really instill that through his story to our young people,” Morales said. “Being present and being aware and being in conversation, even when it’s difficult, even when it asks us to be courageous.”

UPDATED: 4:07 p.m., 1/20/26