Parade: The Essential Show for a 2025 Audience is “Coming Into Town to Win the Day” - Molly Pitzen

“It is still ongoing.”

These are the words that the audience is left with on the final drum beat and blackout of the 2025 national tour of Parade. The show follows the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was convicted of allegedly murdering a 13 year old girl in post-Civil War Georgia, and his subsequent lynching. The musical, which was revived in 2023, adds new updates to Frank’s story since its original 1998 premiere, as the Fulton County District Attorney agreed to reopen his case in 2019 due to faulty testimony and new evidence that is still being considered today. But the final sentence of the show doesn’t just echo the additional truth of the story, it hauntingly echoes the present as well. Through a stellar cast, devastatingly beautiful music and captivatingly intricate direction, Parade is one of the most important, timely, and impactful stories that is being told today.  

Jason Robert Brown’s exquisite lyrics and score manage to perfectly capture both the astounding dissonance of the events happening onstage, as well as the raw and empathetic emotion of the characters. Numbers such as “Real Big News” highlight the media sensationalism surrounding the Frank trial with jazzy piano and horrendously vile lyrics (such as “you might never be sure if your motives are pure but your profits are clear”), while powerful ballads like “There Is a Fountain/It Don’t Make Sense” offer a clear and resound sense of pain for the loss of the young Georgian girl Mary Phagan. 

Max Chernin (who understudied the role on Broadway) is a tragically stellar Leo Frank. He’s able to portray his timid and rigid demeanor in songs like “How Can I Call This Home?” as well as highlight Leo’s humanity with heart-wrenching moments in “It’s Hard to Speak My Heart” and “Sh’ma.” His performance is balanced out by Talia Suskauer, who nails the longing spirit and immense grit of Leo’s wife Lucille. Together, these two take the viewer on an emotional rollercoaster of revitalized love, climaxing with the stunning duet “All the Wasted Time.”

Michael Arden’s Tony-winning direction is able to portray the suffocating feelings of the Georgia South society (such as when Leo is convicted of murder and the entire stage is plagued with Confederate flags), as well as the juxtaposition of the town’s perception of Leo versus his actual character (like in “That’s What He Said,” where Leo’s former employee testifies that he was a sleaze, as Leo physically acts out the stark contrast to his other behavior). Where Arden’s genius lies, however, is the minuscule moments he crafts, such as how none of the black characters stand for the Confederate anthems of the show, or when the entire cast posthumously salutes Leo at the very end of the show for “giving everything for Georgia” (a lyric intended for the Southern soldiers).

As our nation faces a time of extreme political turmoil and astounding bigotry, I saw Parade in an eerily contemporary light. During the show, the real names and photos of the actual people being portrayed are shown. And every time I heard their testimony or their pain or their hatefulness, I felt zapped back into the present. This rendition of Parade, beyond anything else, understands how current its story truly is. With antisemitism, anti-black racism, media sensationalism and hatred for the “other” at an all-time high, every minute of Parade is a constant reminder that it is still ongoing.