The creative team behind the latest revival of Parade is a holy trinity of sorts. This is Broadway composer Jason Robert Brown’s most well-known work. He also wrote the score to one of my favorite musicals of all time, the masterpiece The Bridges of Madison County. This production stars Broadway superstar Ben Platt (Dear Evan Hansen) and is directed by Michael Arden. Arden has a very distinct, modern directing style that I’ve always loved. One of his recent hits was the 2017 revival of Once On this Island.
Parade is a musical based on the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager living in Atlanta in the early 1900s, who finds himself on trial for the murder a 13 year old employee. It’s a heavy show, to say the least.
What Works?
Ben Platt was perfect for the role of Leo Frank. His singing brought me right back to his legendary performance in Dear Evan Hansen, and his acting was surprisingly nuanced. He really does the quirky, vulnerable outsider character well.
Between the first act and the second act, Platt remained on stage, in character. Theatergoers were soon asked to not take photos, but the temptation was real.
Visually, this production of Parade is unique and well thought out. The perfectly tailored costumes are muted and earthy in tone to match the muted and earthy tones of the lighting and staging. So cohesive! At any given time, the show looks like a painting or an old photograph.
As a regular theatergoer, it was a lot of fun to see members of the cast that I had seen in other productions. Michela Diamond, who plays Leo Frank’s fierce, ambitious wife, played young Cher in The Cher Show in 2018, and Sean Krill was in Jagged Little Pill the same year.
Don’t tell anyone this, but one of my go-to cast albums for YEARS was Escape to Margaritaville, the Jimmy Buffet musical. I was delighted to see Paul Nolan “Sully” from the original cast, as Hugh Dorsey, who was brilliant as Leo Frank’s antagonist.
What Else?
I’m sure if I look it up, I will discover that it was completely accurate, but I will say I struggled with Michela Diamond’s accent in the show. It felt like a cross between Mid-Atlantic and Southern. I just found it distracting.
For such a powerful and well done show, I was surprised that the opening scene, in which a confederate soldier says goodbye to his wife before going in to battle, didn’t work for me as well as the rest of the show did. I felt compelled to nudge my friend and say, “It gets better, I promise.” And it certainly did.
Parade is a show about ignorance and prejudice and political corruption. It’s timely that this show has been revived.
At the time of this writing, Parade is playing at the Bernard B Jacobs Theatre in New York City.