From the archives…

PARADE (Arden): A Musical Tragedy of Bigotry and Injustice

Set in Georgia between 1913 and 1915, PARADE examines the true story of Leo Frank, a transplanted Brooklyn-bred Jew accused of killing a thirteen-year-old girl in the Atlanta pencil factory he managed. The musical exposé of bigotry, injustice, and vigilantism, with a book by Pulitzer Prize-winner Alfred Uhry and a score by Jason Robert Brown (co-conceived by Harold Prince), offers a deeply disturbing socio-political statement about the lingering attitudes of the Confederacy well after its defeat in the Civil War. From the prologue’s nostalgic “Old Red Hills of Home” to the song’s now ironic reprise in the finale (beautifully sung by Michael Philip O’Brien as a Confederate soldier), the profound message resonates with every note in the Arden Theatre Company’s understated production, as directed by Terrence J. more…