Detroit Opera Brings The Exonerated Five’s Harrowing Journey To Life In ‘The Central Park Five’
“The Central Park Five,” a powerful performance that ran from May 10 to May 18 at the Detroit Opera, is drawing significant attention for its timely themes of social justice, activism, and protest. The opera resonates strongly in 2025, as the Trump administration continues to implement policies widely viewed as harmful to communities of color, echoing Trump’s eerie past, of when he publicly vilified the five innocent Black and Latino teens falsely accused in the 1989 assault of a white jogger named Trisha Meili.
Directed by Nataki Garrett, the opera recounts the harrowing story of the wrongful arrests and convictions of Yusef Salaam, Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana, and Korey Wise—five Black and Latino teenagers coerced by police into giving false confessions, which led to their imprisonment for the brutal 1989 assault of Meili. At the time, they were merely boys.
The cast features Freddie Ballentine as Kevin Richardson, Chapmen Williams-Ali as Raymond Santana, Nathan Granner as Korey Wise, Markel Reed as Yusef Salaam, and Justin Hopkins as Antron McCray, each delivering a stirring portrayal of the young men’s anguish, resilience, and fight for justice. Actor, Todd Strange, depicts Donald Trump in the riveting play.
The opera is an act of resistance against Donald Trump.
As the five teens fought against a public eager to see them punished, Donald Trump inflamed racial tensions by taking out a full-page ad in Newsday, labeling them “muggers and murderers” and calling for them to “suffer” for their crimes, despite no evidence and their eventual exoneration.
During the planning stages of the production—held last year, while Trump was actively campaigning for a second term—Yuval Sharon, artistic director of the Detroit Opera, admitted to The Associated Press that the company hesitated. They were uncertain whether staging such a politically charged work would provoke backlash, particularly if Trump were re-elected. Ultimately, Sharon and the team decided the story’s urgency and relevance made it impossible to ignore.
“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.
Ultimately, they chose to move forward with the production—determined to share the story with Detroit audiences and to make a bold statement against Trump’s historical vilification of the Central Park Five. Even after learning of his re-election, Sharon said the team stood firm in their vision, refusing to alter a single element of the performance.
“We didn’t make it more critical or less critical (of Trump),” Sharon added. “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.”
It’s unclear when future dates for “The Central Park Five” at the Detroit Opera will be announced.
Where are The Central Park Five now?
The Central Park Five were officially exonerated in 2002 after DNA evidence and a confession linked the crime to a convicted serial rapist, clearing the names of the five young men. Despite Trump’s refusal to apologize for his public attacks on them, the men have gone on to lead impactful and inspiring lives.
Three members of the group have become deeply involved in politics and social justice. In May, Raymond Santana announced his candidacy for the New York City Council. Korey Wise, who continues to live in New York City, founded The Korey Wise Innocence Project at the University of Colorado Law School in 2015, which provides free legal aid to individuals who have been wrongfully convicted.
Yusef Salaam, once vilified by the media, now serves as the elected representative for New York City Council’s District 9. In addition to his political role, he is a motivational speaker, author, and vocal advocate for criminal justice reform, particularly around the issues of false confessions and systemic racial bias in the legal system.
In 2020, Richardson was awarded by Syracuse University with an honorary Bachelor of Arts in Fine Music, while McCray went on to enjoy life in Atlanta with his wife and six children, CNN noted.
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