Based on a true story that fuelled the fires of rising anti-semitism, political injustice and racial tension, the stirring Tony Award-winning Parade explores the endurance of love and hope against all the odds. With a book by acclaimed playwright Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy) and a rousing, colourful and haunting score by Jason Robert Brown (Songs for a New World, The Last Five Years, Bridges of Madison County), Parade is a moving examination of one of the darkest episodes of America’s history.
Set in 1913 in Atlanta, Georgia, with its legacy of slavery and the Civil War, the story follows Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew living in Georgia, who is put on trial for the murder of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, a factory worker under his employ. Already judged as guilty for the murder by the staunch Atlantan community, a sensationalist media publisher fans the flames of religious paranoia, using common antisemitic tropes to create a demonic image of Frank. Together with a janitor’s false testimony, Frank’s fate is sealed. His only defenders are a governor who risks being politically ostracised if they follow their conscience, and his Southern Jewish wife who finds the strength and love to become his greatest champion.
Daring, innovative and bold, Parade is filled with soaring music and a heart wrenching story, offering both moral lessons and a reminder, as Churchill is attributed to have said, ‘that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it’. This could not be more relevant as we see the rise of antisemitism, fear of ‘otherness’ and religious intolerance prevalent in the contemporary world.
Read the preview at AussieTheatre.com