Yusef Salaam

Get the inside scoop on the cast members and creative teams for Arizona Opera's highly anticipated 2023/24 season productions. Discover the talented individuals bringing these performances to life.

Portland Opera continues the 2021/22 season with The Central Park Five, composed by Anthony Davis with a libretto by Richard Wesley. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2020, The Central Park Five is set in New York City in the late 80s—when five Black and Latino teenagers were falsely accused of rape and assault and coerced into confession. Their high-profile case spiraled out of control, turning the accused, and their families, into victims of prejudice and grave injustice.  

Portland Opera has been approved for a $30,000 Grants for Arts Projects award to support the company's upcoming production of The Central Park Five.

The panel, called On America: The Carceral System and Racial Justice, sponsored by the Center for Fiction, is the latest content offering from the Center For Fiction's ongoing series that brings influential thought-leaders together to examine critical issues facing society.

 It is a new chapter at Portland Opera, as the company shares a rearticulated vision for the future, built on foundational progress accomplished during COVID-19 closures, and upcoming programming shaped by a new mission and values for the organization. 

On October 24, The Climate Reality Project, EARTHDAY.ORG, and Hip Hop Caucus are teaming up to present Your Vote, Your World, a virtual livestream event.

On the evening of April 19, 1989, 28-year-old Trisha Meili was viciously beaten, raped and left to die inside New York City's Central Park. The series of events that followed triggered a media frenzy and forever changed the lives of all involved, including the five African American and Hispanic teenagers – Raymond Santana, Antron McCray, Yusef Salaam, Kevin Richardson and Korey Wise – who were convicted in connection with the attack due to their confessions, which they said were coerced by police.

Ross Golan has written hits for Ariana Grande, Flo Rida, Lady Antebellum and more! Now he's bringing his new musical The Wrong Man to the stage with help from the Tony & Emmy-winning duo behind Hamilton.

Filmed last night, Sunday, June 9, live at the Netflix FYSEE space, the special event marked the first time executive producer Oprah Winfrey interviewed The Exonerated Five - Antron McCray, Korey Wise, Kevin Richardson, Raymond Santana and Yusef Salaam.   

Netflix and OWN announced today that the closing night of Netflix's Emmy® FYSEE showcase, featuring a special in-depth conversation hosted by executive producer Oprah Winfrey, with Emmy®-winner Ava DuVernay and the cast of their four-part limited series, When They See Us – will be recorded to premiere on Netflix and OWN, Wednesday June 12 at 10p ET/PT (immediately following the Season Four premiere of DuVernay's critically acclaimed “Queen Sugar” at 9p on OWN). Oprah Winfrey Presents When They See Us Now, will also feature Winfrey's sit down interview with The Exonerated Five men of the Central Park Five 1989 case for the very first time. These conversations, closing out Netflix's immersive FYSEE experience, will take place at Raleigh Studios in Los Angeles on Sunday, June 9th.  

Based on a true story that gripped the country, When They See Us will chronicle the notorious case of five teenagers of color, labeled the Central Park Five, who were convicted of a rape they did not commit. The four part limited series will focus on the five teenagers from Harlem -- Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise. Beginning in the spring of 1989, when the teenagers were first questioned about the incident, the series will span 25 years, highlighting their exoneration in 2002 and the settlement reached with the city of New York in 2014.

IFC Center today announced an impressive and wide-ranging lineup for the third annual Split Screens Festival (www.splitscreensfestival.com) taking place Wednesday, May 29 through Monday, June 3, 2019, at the IFC Center in New York City. The festival consists of special events offering a variety of looks at history, identity and the mystery of existence itself, including panels on series that explore dystopian realities and alternate timelines, and screenings that transport us into any number of time periods and places, be it a late-1800s South Dakota town or the height of 1980s ballroom culture in New York City.

The Central Park Five by Anthony Davis, a world premiere commissioned and presented by Long Beach Opera on June 15th, 22nd and 23rd, explores the interrogation and coerced confessions of five teenagers wrongly convicted of a crime in New York City in the 1980's. The opera details their stories, including the profound effect their unjust prison sentences had on their young lives.

Based on a true story that gripped the country, When They See Us will chronicle the notorious case of five teenagers of color, labeled the Central Park Five, who were convicted of a rape they did not commit. The four part limited series will focus on the five teenagers from Harlem -- Antron McCray, Kevin Richardson, Yusef Salaam, Raymond Santana and Korey Wise. Beginning in the spring of 1989, when the teenagers were first questioned about the incident, the series will span 25 years, highlighting their exoneration in 2002 and the settlement reached with the city of New York in 2014.

In 1989, the media dubbed them the Central Park Five and they were forever linked together by that moniker. On May 31, their true story will come to Netflix as a four-part limited series from Academy Award® Nominee and two-time Emmy Award® Winner Ava DuVernay.  Now titled When They See Us, the series is based on the stories of the five men who were wrongly accused of a crime they did not commit.  

The courtroom comes to order in Ava DuVernay's Central Park Limited Series as The Affair's Joshua Jackson, Hamilton's Christopher Jackson, and 12 Years A Slave's Adepero Oduye join the cast.

Ava DuVernay's central park crime drama unveils its leading men. The actors will portray the real-life teens and adults at the center of the Central Park Five Case.

Ava DuVernay's Central Park scripted drama adds powerful female lineup to cast.  Emmy Award Nominee Niecy Nash (Claws), Aunjanue Ellis (Quantico), Kylie Bunbury (Game Night, Pitch), Marsha Stephanie Blake (Crown Heights) and Storm Reid (A Wrinkle in Time) join limited series in supporting roles.