The Cast Photo by Joan Marcus

Prince directed the production of Parade that opened at Lincoln Center in December 1998 and closed after just two months, failing to find an audience in spite of the impressive work by all parties. Typical of Prince, it was a large production, perhaps too much so for a fact-based story about a Jewish man lynched by a Southern mob crazed with antisemitism and the lingering belief that the South had lost the war but not been defeated.

Despite its lackluster box office, the prestige and awards (besides its Tonys, Parade received the Drama Desk award for Best New Musical and for its book, music, orchestrations, and two lead performances) enabled it to launch a tour, which played the Ordway. Going in, I was already enamored with the score, from repeatedly playing the original cast recording, and rivetted by the Leo Frank story, but I felt that the production, slick and professional, was at a remove from the subject matter.

In 2023 a revised Parade (which had been presented the year before in a City Center gala performance) opened on Broadway in a scaled-down production that drew focus more closely to the historic and political significance, and lasting relevance, of Uhry and Brown's creation. It was cheered by critics, and this time the audiences followed. Parade won the 2023 Tony Award for Best Revival of a Musical, and also for Michael Arden's insightful direction.

That production's national tour launched this week (after technical previews in Schenectady) at Minneapolis' Orpheum Theatre. Though the venue is mammoth (2,579 capacity compared to 1,092 at the Jacobs, which housed the revival in New York), Arden's conception for staging the show, along with Dane Laffrey's scenic design, maintain a compact feeling, keeping the primary action on a small, raised platform that first appears as a hillock where a young couple are engaged in a passionate farewell tryst before the young man heads off to fight for the Confederacy, assuring his beloved that he will protect "The Old Red Hills of Home." This then transforms into a viewing platform for the 1913 Confederate Memorial Day parade marching through the streets of Atlanta. The strong, gallant soldier is now a crippled veteran. The swell of the music, though, is every bit as impassioned and reverent as the crowd pays homage to its heroes.

Leo Frank, a Jewish transplant from Brooklyn, defies the day's spirit of fidelity to the "lost cause" and goes to work at the pencil factory. His position as manager is what brought him to Atlanta and led him to marry the factory owner's niece, Lucille, in what appears to be an awkward and icy relationship. Though they are both Jewish, Lucille is also Southern; to her, Confederate Memorial Day calls for a picnic, while to Leo, the idea of celebrating a war that was lost seems ludicrous as he ponders "How Can I Call this Home?" with the realization that "being Southern's not just being in the South."

A 13-year-old factory girl, Mary Phagan, stops by Frank's office to collect her pay. Later that night, Mary is found dead in the factory's basement. With the other workers celebrating the holiday, only Leo, the custodian, and the night watchman who found Mary's body have been in the building. The latter two are Black men, but it is Leo, the Yankee Jew, who becomes the target of scrutiny. The case is inflamed by sensationalistic journalists, an antisemitic evangelist, and an ambitious district attorney who is encouraged by Georgia's governor. Pressure is easily put upon the Black men to bear false witness, and a trio of Mary's friends are driven to invent devilish testimony damning Leo in a mania resembling the condemnation of John Proctor in The Crucible. Leo is found guilty and sentenced to death.

Lucille steps out of the shadow to defend Leo, breaking through barriers set before her and igniting a depth of love between herself and her husband. The two extol their newly realized love and bemoan "All the Wasted Time," which in my estimation, is one of the most beautiful songs ever written for any show. How the story ends is recorded in the history books. If you are unfamiliar with the shocking conclusion, I will leave it to you to choose to seek out the story in advance, or wait and experience its full force in Parade.

In addition to the use of the small platform for most of the dramatic scenes–expanding to the full stage for epic moments such as public rioting against Leo Frank, street celebrations upon hearing the verdict, and, of course, the parade–this production makes wise use of projections (designed by Sven Ortel) of old sepia-tone photos showing the locations in which the story plays out as well as the actual people depicted in the course of the show. This draws us inward to the grueling fact that this is no hypothetical story, but historically documented events that demonstrate the effect of racism and antisemitism, and a lingering legacy of Southern hatred for what was viewed as elite Northerners. If, in 1998, with Bill Clinton in the White House, Parade seemed like it was needlessly resurrecting a horrible chapter of history, today it may seem to be exposing the roots of the impasse in two discordant arms of our nation's citizenry.

The touring company is cast beautifully, with two exceptional leads in Max Chernin as Leo Frank and Talia Suskauer as Lucille Frank. Chernin persuasively conveys Frank's discomfort of being a fish very far from water, a college-educated Jewish New Yorker in the South, and the righteous indignation he expresses at the charges levied against him, which only serves to move the public's opinion of him from disdain to loathing. Suskauer embraces Lucille's frustration at being caught in a disappointing marriage, once thought to be promising, then unleashing her inner strength to fight for Leo's life in "Do It Alone," persevering with grace and chutzpah. The pair's two duets, the ecstatic "This Is Not Over" and the soaring "All the Wasted Time," are gloriously delivered.

Andrew Samonsky, as the chief antagonist, prosecutor Hugh Dorsey, gives a chilling performance along with a lush, powerful voice, previously heard on the same stage when Samonsky played the lead in the tour of another show with a Tony-winning Jason Robert Brown score, The Bridges of Madison County. Chris Shyer gives a strong performance as Governor Frank Slaton, a politician motivated by expediency, who comes to recognize the higher ground his office demands of him. Olivia Goosman is appealing as Mary Phagan, an adolescent playing at flirtation with Frankie Epps, winningly played by Jack Roden as a teenage swain who turns rabid in pursuit of Mary's murderer. The rabble-rousing Christian publisher Tom Watson is well-played with the expected fire, brimstone, and a bit of underhanded dealing by Griffin Binnicker, while Michael Tacconi conveys dissolute police reporter Britt Craig's glee at the career opportunity Mary Phagan's murder places at his feet in "Real Big News."

Ramone Nelson gives an expressive performance as Jim Conley, the perjuring custodian, Robert Knight displays nervous agitation as night watchman Newt Lee, fearful that he will be blamed for Mary's murder, and Danielle Greaves gives a moving portrayal as Minnie, the Franks' longtime house maid who also gets caught up in the trial. As two servants in Governor Slaton's household, Prentiss E. Mouton and Oluchi Nwaokorie give powerful voice to observations that no one ever fusses over the murder of a Black girl or the sentencing of a Black man the way fuss over Mary Phagan and Leo Frank, in "A Rumblin' and a Rollin'."

The production benefits enormously from Susan Hilferty and Mark Koss' costume designs, Heather Gilbert's lighting design, Jon Weston's sound design, and Tom Watson's hair and wig designs. There is a limited amount of dancing, but it is well devised by co-choreographers Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant. Especially noteworthy are the morbidly ecstatic cake walk celebration upon Leo's conviction and a fantasy dance by Leo himself, representing the grotesquely absurd nature of the factory girls' accusations against him, enticing them to "Come Up to My Office."

Parade is not an easy show to sit through, given the harsh subject matter and the fact that it is based on truth. Leo's cold demeanor makes it easy to believe that he is the monster painted by the prosecution. Yet, with nothing more than circumstantial evidence, Uhry's book and Chernin's performance give us reason to believe in Leo's innocence. That the public is so fully swayed–in fact, so eager to believe–that the man's outsider status brands him as a murderer demonstrates how then, as now, how the story is told can be more powerful than the truth.

Parade runs through January 26, 2025, at the Orpheum Theatre, 910 Hennepin Avenue, Minneapolis MN. For tickets and information, please visit hennepintheatretrust.org or call 612-339-7007. For information on the tour, visit www.paradebroadway.com.

Book: Alfred Uhry; Music and Lyrics: Jason Robert Brown; Co-Conceived by: Harold Prince; Director: Michael Arden; Co-Choreographers: Lauren Yalango-Grant & Christopher Cree Grant; Orchestrations: Daniel Felsenfeld; Scenic Design: Diane Laffrey; Costume Design: Susan Hilferty & Mark Koss; Lighting Design: Heather Gilbert; Sound Design: Jon Weston; Projections Design: Sven Ortel; Hair and Wig Design: Tom Watson; Music Supervision: Tom Murray; Music Director/Conductor: Charlie Alterman; Music Coordinator: Kimberlee Wertz; Production Stage Manager: Veronica Aglow; Associate Director: Emilio Ramos; Casting Director: The Telsey Office, Craig Burns, CSA.

Cast: Griffin Binnicker (Tom Watson), Ben Cherington (Officer Ivey/Thomas Blackstock/others), Max Chernin (Leo Frank), Emily Rose DeMartino (Essie/others), Bailee Endebrock (Monteen/others), Alison Ewing (Sally Slaton), Caroline Fairweather (Nurse/Daisy Hopkins/others), Olivia Goosman (Mary Phagan), Danielle Lee Graves (Minnie McKnight), Evan Harrington (Old Soldier/Judge Roam), Jenny Hickman (Mrs. Phagan), Trevor James (Young Soldier/others), Robert Knight (Newt Lee), Sophia Manicone (Iola Stover), Trista Moldovan (Nina Formby/others), Prentiss E. Mouton (Riley), Ramone Nelson (Jim Conley), Oluchi Nwaokorie (Angela), Ethan Riordan (Mr. Turner/others), Jack Roden (Frankie Epps), Andrew Samonsky (Hugh Dorsey), Chris Shyer (Governor Slaton), Jason Simon (Detective Starnes/James Gnatt/others), Talia Suskauer (Lucille Frank), Michael Tacconi (Britt Craig), Brian Vaughn (Luther Rosser/Mr. Peavey). Swings: William Bishop, Jerquintez A. Gipson, Brianna Javis, Benjamin Magnuson, Jodi Snyder, Eden Witvoet, Jake Ziman.