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Performers and opera lovers see ‘The Central Park Five’ as a show of resistance against Trump

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. 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. “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.

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