Don’t Let The Bleak Premise Of The First Rate Musical “Parade” Scare You Away

March 22, 2025March 22, 2025 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Cast of the National Tour of ‘Parade’ at the Emerson Colonial Theatre. Photos by Joan Marcus

‘Parade’ – Book by Alfred Uhry; Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown; Co-conceived by Harold Prince; Directed by Michael Arden; Choreography by Lauren Yalango-Grant & Christopher Cree Grant; Music direction by Charlie Alterman. At the Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston, through March 23^rd.

By Shelley A. Sackett

It was with trepidation that I attended opening night of “Parade,” now at the Emerson Colonial Theatre through March 23. After all, the premise of the 2023 multiple Tony Award-winning musical revival is hardly uplifting. The book by Alfred Uhry (author of “Driving Miss Daisy”) is set in 1913 Atlanta and tells the true story of Leo Frank, a transplanted Brooklyn Jew and pencil factory supervisor who is married to his Jewish boss’s daughter, Lucille. As the newlyweds struggle to carve out their lives in the red hills of Georgia, Leo is falsely scapegoated for the murder of a 13-year-old white girl in his employ. The rest of the play dramatizes his trial, imprisonment, and 1915 mob lynching.

‘Parade’ at Emerson Colonial a Stark Reminder that Past is Prologue

March 15, 2025March 20, 2025 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Parade – Book by Alfred Uhry; Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown; Co-conceived by Harold Prince; Directed by Michael Arden; Choreography by Lauren Yalango-Grant & Christopher Cree Grant; Music direction by Charlie Alterman. At the Emerson Colonial Theatre, Boston, through March 23^rd.

by Mike Hoban

Theatergoers should prepare for a profoundly conflicted experience with the Broadway revival of Parade, now at the Emerson Colonial on its North American tour. The brilliant artistry of this production is undeniable, with its superb cast and creative staging, but the content is a painful reminder that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Although it’s set in the Deep South in 1913, the mob rule and the institutionalized demonization of the “other” look a lot like America in 2025.

Seacoast Rep’s ‘PARADE’ Taps Into the Human Need to Belong

March 30, 2023April 2, 2023 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

Music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. Book by Alfred Uhry. Directors Ben Hart and Brandon James. Music Director William Asher. Choreographers Jason Faria and Alyssa Dumas. Lighting Designer Zachary Ahmad-Kahloon. Sound Designer Andrew Cameron. Properties Designers Gretchen Gray and Elise Marshall. Costume Designer DW. Set Designers Ben Hart and Brandon James. Presented by the Seacoast Repertory Theatre, Portsmouth, NH through April 9th.

by Linda Chin

The notorious 1913 case of Leo Frank, a Jewish man from the north framed by anti-Semites in Georgia for the murder of his factory employee 13-year-old Mary Phagan, is chillingly dramatized in the musical Parade. With hate crimes intensifying in the US – and a recently released ADL (Anti-Defamation League) report showing that incidents of antisemitic activity in New England surged to historic levels in 2022 – this story is tragically timely and relevant.

Moonbox Productions’ ‘Parade’ is an Ugly Tale, Beautifully Told

December 16, 2019 Theater MirrorLeave a comment

*Phil Tayler (center) and cast of Moonbox Productions’ “Parade” – Photos: Sharman Altshuler*

By Julie-Anne Whitney

‘Parade’ – Book by Alfred Uhry, Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown; Produced by Sharman Altshuler; Directed by Jason Modica; Music Direction by Catherine Stornetta; Choreography by Kira Trolio; Set Design by Lindsay Fuori; Lighting Design by Steve Shack; Sound Design by Elizabeth Cahill; Costume Design by Chelsea Kerl; Stage Managed by Cesara Walters; Dramaturgy by Allison Olivia Choat; Presented by Moonbox Productions at the Boston Center for the Arts (Roberts Theatre) through December 28, 2019.

In the early hours of August 17, 1915, a rabble of twenty-five men stormed a prison farm in Milledgeville, Georgia and captured Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jewish man wrongfully accused of raping and murdering Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old factory worker in his employ. After driving more than 100 miles back to Phagan’s hometown of Marietta, the angry mob hoisted Frank on top of a table under a large oak tree and demanded an admission of guilt. 31-year-old Frank repeatedly proclaimed his innocence – and was promptly hanged by the neck until dead. One month after the lynching, members of the group, The Knights of Mary Phagan, gathered around a burning cross on Stone Mountain near Atlanta, Georgia and ignited the rebirth of the Ku Klux Klan.