DETROIT (AP) 鈥� 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鈥檚 Central Park and prominently features Trump as a real estate showman calling for the death penalty in the case.
Booking the production reflected a 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.
鈥淎s 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鈥檙e 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.
, replaced them with loyalists and took over as board chair. He wrote on social media that members of the previous board 鈥渄o not share our Vision for a Golden Age in Arts and Culture.鈥�
Trump then took aim at the through proposed budget cuts. And earlier this month, he 鈥渙n any and all" foreign-produced movies coming into the U.S.
鈥淢uggers and murderers鈥�
Debuting in 2019, 鈥淭he Central Park Five鈥� 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.
鈥淚 want to hate these muggers and murderers,鈥� Trump in Newsday. 鈥淭hey should be forced to suffer and, when they kill, they should be executed for their crimes."
鈥淚t 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,鈥� composer Anthony Davis said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 become his playbook ever since, whether he鈥檚 demonizing immigrants or he鈥檚 demonizing trans people or he鈥檚 demonizing homosexuals or demonizing anyone that he can view as the other.鈥�
The after evidence linked a serial rapist to the crime. As president in 2019, Trump to the men, saying 鈥渢hey admitted their guilt.鈥� The opera includes a performer portraying Trump.
鈥淲e didn鈥檛 make it more critical or less critical (of Trump),鈥� Sharon said of the opera. 鈥淲hat they did with this piece is they took Trump鈥檚 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.鈥�
Resistance by creating and performing
鈥淭he Central Park Five鈥� 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 鈥� a mirror of at the Kennedy Center to protest Trump's takeover.
鈥淭his is a stifling of the truth. This is a stifling of art,鈥� 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.
鈥淚s somebody going to come in and shoot up the building?鈥� he said. 鈥淭hey did very well in hiring extra security. We always felt safe.鈥�
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.
鈥淲ith the way the political climate is, I don鈥檛 really foresee (another performance of 鈥淭he Central Park Five鈥� opera) in the states in the next few years," Granner said, adding that if the opportunity arises, he would reprise the role of Wise.
Corey Williams, The Associated Press
