Latest news with #TheCentralParkFive
3 days ago
- Entertainment
Performers and opera lovers see 'The Central Park Five' as a show of resistance against Trump
DETROIT -- As Detroit Opera officials made plans last fall to bring a production based on the Central Park Five to their 2025 lineup, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump loomed large and just off stage. The opera puts to music the story of five Black and Latino teens imprisoned for the 1989 rape and beating of a white woman in New York's Central Park and prominently features Trump as a real estate showman calling for the death penalty in the case. Booking the production reflected a modern commitment to adding diverse and contemporary stories to opera houses in Detroit and elsewhere in the U.S., stages where classic composers have long reigned. But adding it to the calendar also forced officials to consider how Trump could react to the production if he won a second term as president, said Yuval Sharon, artistic director at the opera house. 'As soon as the election happened last November, we did think to ourselves, how can we best prepare our audience and prepare our community to know what they're about to see when they come to the Detroit opera," Sharon said. In true theater fashion, they decided to let the show go on, unaware that audiences would take their seats as Trump pursues dramatic changes to the arts in the U.S. He fired the Kennedy Center board, replaced them with loyalists and took over as board chair. He wrote on social media that members of the previous board 'do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.' Trump then took aim at the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities through proposed budget cuts. And earlier this month, he authorized a 100% tariff 'on any and all" foreign-produced movies coming into the U.S. Debuting in 2019, 'The Central Park Five' opera won the Pulitzer Prize for music the following year. It has also been performed in Portland, Oregon, and Long Beach, California. So far, no other performances are on its calendar. At its heart are the events leading up to the arrests, convictions and imprisonment of Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise. The teens said their confessions to police were coerced. To many, the five came to embody the damage caused by a racist belief in out-of-control crime perpetrated by youths of color. Trump added fuel with full-page ads in New York newspapers. 'I want to hate these muggers and murderers,' Trump wrote in an ad in Newsday. 'They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes." 'It started with his demonizing five young boys, calling for the death penalty, and really exploiting the underlying racial animus that existed and racial anxiety in New York,' composer Anthony Davis said. 'That's become his playbook ever since, whether he's demonizing immigrants or he's demonizing trans people or he's demonizing homosexuals or demonizing anyone that he can view as the other.' The convictions of the five were vacated in 2002 after evidence linked a serial rapist to the crime. As president in 2019, Trump refused to apologize to the men, saying 'they admitted their guilt.' The opera includes a performer portraying Trump. 'We didn't make it more critical or less critical (of Trump),' Sharon said of the opera. 'What they did with this piece is they took Trump's own words and they set that to music. Ninety-five percent of the libretto is directly from the language that Trump used to insert himself in this story.' 'The Central Park Five' played for three dates in May in Detroit and people associated with the production said they experienced no significant backlash. Some in the arts community said moving forward with the performance was a sign of resistance — a mirror of artists or productions backing out of performances at the Kennedy Center to protest Trump's takeover. 'This is a stifling of the truth. This is a stifling of art,' performer Nathan Granner said of efforts to erase federal funding for arts programs. Granner, 43, has portrayed Korey Wise since the opera's launch. He says it did cross his mind with these performances whether opponents to the show could become violent. 'Is somebody going to come in and shoot up the building?' he said. 'They did very well in hiring extra security. We always felt safe.' With the performances done, Granner now wonders whether Trump's approach to the arts will shape audience interest and reactions in productions and other creations that don't fit with the president's idea of fine art. 'With the way the political climate is, I don't really foresee (another performance of 'The Central Park Five' opera) in the states in the next few years," Granner said, adding that if the opportunity arises, he would reprise the role of Wise.
Yahoo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Performers and opera lovers see 'The Central Park Five' as a show of resistance against Trump
DETROIT (AP) — As Detroit Opera officials made plans last fall to bring a production based on the Central Park Five to their 2025 lineup, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump loomed large and just off stage. The opera puts to music the story of five Black and Latino teens imprisoned for the 1989 rape and beating of a white woman in New York's Central Park and prominently features Trump as a real estate showman calling for the death penalty in the case. Booking the production reflected a modern commitment to adding diverse and contemporary stories to opera houses in Detroit and elsewhere in the U.S., stages where classic composers have long reigned. But adding it to the calendar also forced officials to consider how Trump could react to the production if he won a second term as president, said Yuval Sharon, artistic director at the opera house. 'As soon as the election happened last November, we did think to ourselves, how can we best prepare our audience and prepare our community to know what they're about to see when they come to the Detroit opera," Sharon said. In true theater fashion, they decided to let the show go on, unaware that audiences would take their seats as Trump pursues dramatic changes to the arts in the U.S. He fired the Kennedy Center board, replaced them with loyalists and took over as board chair. He wrote on social media that members of the previous board 'do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.' Trump then took aim at the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities through proposed budget cuts. And earlier this month, he authorized a 100% tariff 'on any and all" foreign-produced movies coming into the U.S. 'Muggers and murderers' Debuting in 2019, 'The Central Park Five' opera won the Pulitzer Prize for music the following year. It has also been performed in Portland, Oregon, and Long Beach, California. So far, no other performances are on its calendar. At its heart are the events leading up to the arrests, convictions and imprisonment of Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise. The teens said their confessions to police were coerced. To many, the five came to embody the damage caused by a racist belief in out-of-control crime perpetrated by youths of color. Trump added fuel with full-page ads in New York newspapers. 'I want to hate these muggers and murderers,' Trump wrote in an ad in Newsday. 'They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes." 'It started with his demonizing five young boys, calling for the death penalty, and really exploiting the underlying racial animus that existed and racial anxiety in New York,' composer Anthony Davis said. 'That's become his playbook ever since, whether he's demonizing immigrants or he's demonizing trans people or he's demonizing homosexuals or demonizing anyone that he can view as the other.' The convictions of the five were vacated in 2002 after evidence linked a serial rapist to the crime. As president in 2019, Trump refused to apologize to the men, saying 'they admitted their guilt.' The opera includes a performer portraying Trump. 'We didn't make it more critical or less critical (of Trump),' Sharon said of the opera. 'What they did with this piece is they took Trump's own words and they set that to music. Ninety-five percent of the libretto is directly from the language that Trump used to insert himself in this story.' Resistance by creating and performing 'The Central Park Five' played for three dates in May in Detroit and people associated with the production said they experienced no significant backlash. Some in the arts community said moving forward with the performance was a sign of resistance — a mirror of artists or productions backing out of performances at the Kennedy Center to protest Trump's takeover. 'This is a stifling of the truth. This is a stifling of art,' performer Nathan Granner said of efforts to erase federal funding for arts programs. Granner, 43, has portrayed Korey Wise since the opera's launch. He says it did cross his mind with these performances whether opponents to the show could become violent. 'Is somebody going to come in and shoot up the building?' he said. 'They did very well in hiring extra security. We always felt safe.' With the performances done, Granner now wonders whether Trump's approach to the arts will shape audience interest and reactions in productions and other creations that don't fit with the president's idea of fine art. 'With the way the political climate is, I don't really foresee (another performance of 'The Central Park Five' opera) in the states in the next few years," Granner said, adding that if the opportunity arises, he would reprise the role of Wise.
Boston Globe
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Boston Globe
Performers and opera lovers see ‘The Central Park Five' as a show of resistance against Trump
But adding it to the calendar also forced officials to consider how Trump could react to the production if he won a second term as president, said Yuval Sharon, artistic director at the opera house. Advertisement 'As soon as the election happened last November, we did think to ourselves, how can we best prepare our audience and prepare our community to know what they're about to see when they come to the Detroit opera,' Sharon said. Get Starting Point A guide through the most important stories of the morning, delivered Monday through Friday. Enter Email Sign Up In true theater fashion, they decided to let the show go on, unaware that audiences would take their seats as Trump pursues dramatic changes to the arts in the U.S. He fired the Kennedy Center board, replaced them with loyalists and took over as board chair. He wrote on social media that members of the previous board 'do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.' Trump then took aim at the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities through proposed budget cuts. And earlier this month, he authorized a 100% tariff 'on any and all' foreign-produced movies coming into the U.S. Advertisement 'Muggers and murderers' Debuting in 2019, 'The Central Park Five' opera won the Pulitzer Prize for music the following year. It has also been performed in Portland, Oregon, and Long Beach, California. So far, no other performances are on its calendar. At its heart are the events leading up to the arrests, convictions and imprisonment of Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise. The teens said their confessions to police were coerced. To many, the five came to embody the damage caused by a racist belief in out-of-control crime perpetrated by youths of color. Trump added fuel with full-page ads in New York newspapers. 'I want to hate these muggers and murderers,' Trump wrote in an ad in Newsday. 'They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.' 'It started with his demonizing five young boys, calling for the death penalty, and really exploiting the underlying racial animus that existed and racial anxiety in New York,' composer Anthony Davis said. 'That's become his playbook ever since, whether he's demonizing immigrants or he's demonizing trans people or he's demonizing homosexuals or demonizing anyone that he can view as the other.' The convictions of the five were vacated in 2002 after evidence linked a serial rapist to the crime. As president in 2019, Trump refused to apologize to the men, saying 'they admitted their guilt.' The opera includes a performer portraying Trump. 'We didn't make it more critical or less critical (of Trump),' Sharon said of the opera. 'What they did with this piece is they took Trump's own words and they set that to music. Ninety-five percent of the libretto is directly from the language that Trump used to insert himself in this story.' Advertisement Resistance by creating and performing 'The Central Park Five' played for three dates in May in Detroit and people associated with the production said they experienced no significant backlash. Some in the arts community said moving forward with the performance was a sign of resistance — a mirror of artists or productions backing out of performances at the Kennedy Center to protest Trump's takeover. 'This is a stifling of the truth. This is a stifling of art,' performer Nathan Granner said of efforts to erase federal funding for arts programs. Granner, 43, has portrayed Korey Wise since the opera's launch. He says it did cross his mind with these performances whether opponents to the show could become violent. 'Is somebody going to come in and shoot up the building?' he said. 'They did very well in hiring extra security. We always felt safe.' With the performances done, Granner now wonders whether Trump's approach to the arts will shape audience interest and reactions in productions and other creations that don't fit with the president's idea of fine art. 'With the way the political climate is, I don't really foresee (another performance of 'The Central Park Five' opera) in the states in the next few years," Granner said, adding that if the opportunity arises, he would reprise the role of Wise.
Winnipeg Free Press
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Winnipeg Free Press
Performers and opera lovers see ‘The Central Park Five' as a show of resistance against Trump
DETROIT (AP) — As Detroit Opera officials made plans last fall to bring a production based on the Central Park Five to their 2025 lineup, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump loomed large and just off stage. The opera puts to music the story of five Black and Latino teens imprisoned for the 1989 rape and beating of a white woman in New York's Central Park and prominently features Trump as a real estate showman calling for the death penalty in the case. Booking the production reflected a modern commitment to adding diverse and contemporary stories to opera houses in Detroit and elsewhere in the U.S., stages where classic composers have long reigned. But adding it to the calendar also forced officials to consider how Trump could react to the production if he won a second term as president, said Yuval Sharon, artistic director at the opera house. 'As soon as the election happened last November, we did think to ourselves, how can we best prepare our audience and prepare our community to know what they're about to see when they come to the Detroit opera,' Sharon said. In true theater fashion, they decided to let the show go on, unaware that audiences would take their seats as Trump pursues dramatic changes to the arts in the U.S. He fired the Kennedy Center board, replaced them with loyalists and took over as board chair. He wrote on social media that members of the previous board 'do not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.' Trump then took aim at the National Endowment for the Arts and National Endowment for the Humanities through proposed budget cuts. And earlier this month, he authorized a 100% tariff 'on any and all' foreign-produced movies coming into the U.S. 'Muggers and murderers' Debuting in 2019, 'The Central Park Five' opera won the Pulitzer Prize for music the following year. It has also been performed in Portland, Oregon, and Long Beach, California. So far, no other performances are on its calendar. At its heart are the events leading up to the arrests, convictions and imprisonment of Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise. The teens said their confessions to police were coerced. To many, the five came to embody the damage caused by a racist belief in out-of-control crime perpetrated by youths of color. Trump added fuel with full-page ads in New York newspapers. 'I want to hate these muggers and murderers,' Trump wrote in an ad in Newsday. 'They should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes.' 'It started with his demonizing five young boys, calling for the death penalty, and really exploiting the underlying racial animus that existed and racial anxiety in New York,' composer Anthony Davis said. 'That's become his playbook ever since, whether he's demonizing immigrants or he's demonizing trans people or he's demonizing homosexuals or demonizing anyone that he can view as the other.' The convictions of the five were vacated in 2002 after evidence linked a serial rapist to the crime. As president in 2019, Trump refused to apologize to the men, saying 'they admitted their guilt.' The opera includes a performer portraying Trump. 'We didn't make it more critical or less critical (of Trump),' Sharon said of the opera. 'What they did with this piece is they took Trump's own words and they set that to music. Ninety-five percent of the libretto is directly from the language that Trump used to insert himself in this story.' Resistance by creating and performing 'The Central Park Five' played for three dates in May in Detroit and people associated with the production said they experienced no significant backlash. Some in the arts community said moving forward with the performance was a sign of resistance — a mirror of artists or productions backing out of performances at the Kennedy Center to protest Trump's takeover. Weekly A weekly look at what's happening in Winnipeg's arts and entertainment scene. 'This is a stifling of the truth. This is a stifling of art,' performer Nathan Granner said of efforts to erase federal funding for arts programs. Granner, 43, has portrayed Korey Wise since the opera's launch. He says it did cross his mind with these performances whether opponents to the show could become violent. 'Is somebody going to come in and shoot up the building?' he said. 'They did very well in hiring extra security. We always felt safe.' With the performances done, Granner now wonders whether Trump's approach to the arts will shape audience interest and reactions in productions and other creations that don't fit with the president's idea of fine art. 'With the way the political climate is, I don't really foresee (another performance of 'The Central Park Five' opera) in the states in the next few years,' Granner said, adding that if the opportunity arises, he would reprise the role of Wise.
New York Times
28-04-2025
- Entertainment
- New York Times
Detroit Opera Steps Into Trump's Cross Hairs With ‘Central Park Five'
A rehearsal of 'The Central Park Five,' an opera about the Black and Latino boys wrongly convicted of raping a Central Park jogger, was just a few days old this month when the tenor who plays Donald J. Trump began to sing. 'They are animals! Monsters!…Support our police! Bring back the death penalty!' he bellowed. The opera, which chronicles how the young men were forced to confess and later were exonerated, depicts President Trump as an inflammatory figure who, in 1989, bought several full-page newspaper ads that demonized 'roving bands of wild criminals,' adding, 'I want them to be afraid.' When the work — composed by Anthony Davis with a libretto by Richard Wesley — premiered in California in 2019, Mr. Trump's approval ratings were low and Democrats were itching to challenge him. Now, as a new production opens next month at the Detroit Opera House, the setting is quite different. Mr. Trump is a resurrected, emboldened political force who, since returning to office, has wielded power to shutter federal agencies, cut grants and strong-arm law firms and universities, all of which has led some opponents to worry about retaliation. None of this has been lost on Detroit Opera, as the company braces for blowback and hopes for applause. Its leadership team understands the perils of mounting a production that waves a red cape at a pumped-up, reactive presidency. Surprisingly, the opera is partially financed by the National Endowment for the Arts, with some $40,000 of the production's $1 million cost coming through a federal grant. It was awarded, and paid, before the agency canceled most of its existing grants at the Trump administration's direction. Todd Strange, the tenor who plays Mr. Trump, said in an interview that he could not deny feeling some trepidation at portraying a president who so consistently hits back at his critics. Still, Mr. Strange said, it was important to press forward. 'The fear can't shut me down from doing that,' he said. 'I'm not going to run away from the role.' The stakes were certainly lower during Mr. Trump's first term, when he largely focused on broader issues and left cultural organizations alone. Round two has been different. The president has taken direct aim at culture and arts institutions — inserting himself as the head of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and challenging the leadership and programming of the Smithsonian Institution in an effort to align them with his view of America. Mr. Trump has criticized the Kennedy Center for celebrating 'radical left lunatics' and the Smithsonian for coming 'under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.' But Detroit Opera says it is prepared for what might be looming, that it confirmed the backing of board members, alerted donors, considered the risks and took stock of its core mission. 'This piece is so worth telling,' said Yuval Sharon, the company's artistic director. 'We are not a political organization. We are a cultural organization that serves the city of Detroit and the greater region. And we are not taking a position with this opera, but it's obviously going to be inflammatory to have the character of Donald Trump onstage.' Patty Isacson Sabee, the company's president and chief executive, said she thought it was important to have 'a healthy amount of fear,' adding, 'That will help drive me to make the best decisions about how to take care of everyone.' The company has put in place additional precautions — beefing up security and preparing audience members for metal detectors at the door. Detroit Opera has also enlisted an employee assistance program for this production in case any of the artists, creative team or staff decide they need additional support. Mr. Davis, the composer of the work, which won the Pulitzer Prize in 2020, said this is a moment in the country that calls for artistic courage. 'They're trying to erase history, whether it's slavery or the civil rights struggle, or the history of racism,' said Mr. Davis. 'I don't think we can allow that. Particularly as African-Americans, we have to speak up.' 'We're seeing now with deportation the casualties that happen when there is a rush to judgment, when they don't follow procedure, when they ignore evidence, when you ignore the law, when you ignore the system that protects us,' he added. 'That can be the cost of dissent. We're allowed to say what we want, and that's part of our country. That's part of who we are.' Mr. Trump has bristled in the past about his depiction on shows like 'Saturday Night Live' that have satirized him, but his reaction to the opera, a more serious work whose libretto incorporates Mr. Trump's own words, is so far not known. The White House press office did not respond to requests for comment. Mr. Trump did not apologize for his characterization of the young men, and just this month a federal judge refused to dismiss a defamation lawsuit they brought against the president. The five men — Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson and Antron McCray — sued the president for his remarks in a 2024 presidential debate with Kamala Harris. Mr. Trump falsely said that the men had pleaded guilty to the crime and that someone had been killed during the attack. At the Democratic National Convention that year, four of the five men — who now prefer to be called the Exonerated Five — said that what Mr. Trump did to them was devastating and disqualified him for a second term. The men spent between seven to 13 years in prison until their sentences were overturned in 2002 when the district attorney determined that the assault was committed by a man named Matias Reyes. The five subsequently received a $41 million dollar settlement from New York City and have since been the focus of films, including a documentary by Ken Burns, and the fictionalized, Emmy Award-winning Netflix series 'When They See Us,' by Ava DuVernay. As is typical with opera production calendars, Detroit scheduled 'The Central Park Five' two years in advance, before Mr. Trump's second-term aspirations had gathered steam. Yet when Mr. Sharon, the artistic director, reached out to Mr. Davis after the 2024 election, the composer first thought he was calling to cancel the 'Central Park Five.' 'That was the first indication to me that there is likely going to be a great cooling-off effect in our culture,' Mr. Sharon said, 'that we had to actively fight against.' The board chairman of Detroit Opera said that he and his fellow trustees have been unwavering in their support of the production. 'There was never a moment where we questioned this,' said the chairman, Ethan D. Davidson. 'Audiences are increasingly demanding stories that are relevant to their lived experiences. There is no better example of that than the 'Central Park Five.' People in this community want to see themselves represented onstage.' Those who are depicting members of the Central Park Five expressed a similar sense of resolve. 'The job of art is to be society's mirror,' said Chaz'men Williams-Ali, who plays Santana. 'Who could have foreseen that we would be back with this person in the White House with this opera being what it is? But here we are, and we can't let that stop us from taking a swing at it and saying what we got to say.' Nataki Garrett, the opera's director, said that as a Black woman who has held leadership positions — she recently served as the artistic director of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival — she already felt vulnerable under Mr. Trump, given his termination of diversity efforts and his history of disparaging women. 'I have to go into this with my eyes wide open, and I have to be bare in the face of my own fear,' she said. 'But it is of the utmost importance to make sure that this story is told. You keep telling a story like this until you don't have to anymore.'
