By Ashraf Khalil
On a night when half a dozen people made jokes about this being the last-ever Mark Twain Prize, Conan O’Brien made sure the ceremony at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts ended on a high note.
O’Brien accepted the award for lifetime achievement in comedy Sunday night while acknowledging the backstage turmoil that hangs over the future of the cultural center in Washington.
O’Brien, 61, was named the 26th recipient of the Mark Twain Prize in mid-January, about three weeks before President Donald Trump upended the Kennedy Center by ousting longtime president Deborah Rutter and board chairman David Rubenstein. Trump dismissed the board of trustees and replaced them with loyalists, who then elected him as chairman.
On Sunday, O’Brien specifically thanked Rubenstein and Rutter — drawing an extended round of applause — and also Kennedy Center staffers who, he said, were “worried about what the future might bring.”
He said the
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