Austin Arts Center to be Demolished, Replaced by Tucker Carlson ’91 Center for Federal Compliance

Boob Woodward ’26

Staff Writer

On Friday, March 28, Trinity College announced via X (formerly known as… a name I am not permitted to say) that the Austin Arts Center (AAC), the campus hotspot for all things theater and art, will be demolished next month to make room for the brand-new Tucker Carlson ‘91 Center for Federal Compliance. AAC, which is located on the Gates Quad near Raether Library, was built in 1964 and has since housed performance spaces for the Theater and Dance department, art studios for the Studio Arts department and practice rooms and music labs for the Music department.

When asked about the major change, a representative from the college who requested anonymity (his name definitely does not rhyme with Pojas) told the Tripod to “mind your own business” after expressing “how important federal funding is to this institution. Do you see what happened to Columbia? Do you want us to go down like that?” Along with the establishment of the new Center for Federal Compliance, the administration plans to implement “new messaging” regarding student protests. When I sat down with several key leaders in the college administration, one remarked, “Wait, this is important. Write this down. Make sure to put in your article that we love our supreme leaders, Elon Musk and Donald Trump. They can take all of our students if they want to, we don’t care,” the administrator said, referring to recent immigration crackdowns which have turned against university students. “We won’t even send out a half-assed statement about it. Just please don’t take away our money.”

The Theater and Dance, Music and Studio Art departments released a joint statement Monday about the loss of AAC on Bluesky, writing, “We are of course saddened to hear that the Austin Arts Center will be closing down. We are committed to nurturing our five combined students in their education and will continue to ensure that they are receiving the education we deserve. Although the administration has decided to slash our budget, we have decided that we will be performing ‘Lez Miserables’ in the spring of 2026 to demonstrate to the campus community the importance of art in all of its forms.” It should be noted that “Lez Miserables” is not the better-known “Les Miserables” musical based on the 1862 novel by the same name by Victor Hugo, but a different adaptation of the book by a current Trinity sophomore, Leslie Woman ‘27. “Lez Miserables” is a musical that follows Jeanie Valjean, a disgraced lesbian Democratic Congresswoman, as she fights against an impeachment effort led by Kayleigh Javert, a straight Republican Congresswoman. Reviews from its staged reading last fall called it “distinctly uninspiring” and “derivative in a way that made me wonder if the writer even read the book.”

While there are currently no protests organized for the demolition of AAC, Trinity’s Musical Theater Club has called for a preliminary meeting to discuss if there should be a meeting about proposing a sit-in. 

This is a developing story.