Parade

Synopsis

Jason Robert Brown's Tony Award Winning Musical based on the seminal trial of Leo Frank in 1913 Atlanta, Georgia. The murder of a young girl ignites dormant prejudice as a media frenzy incites a community to revenge.

Our Review:

25 September 2007

There is no question that Parade is a significant and highly charged new American musical and that choreographer Rob Ashford’s production – his first as a stand-alone director – at the Donmar is a triumph. Why, then, has it taken ten years to cross the Atlantic and find favour, as it surely will, with discerning audiences in Covent Garden?

Because it received one bad review from the all-important New York Times, that’s why, and closed after a mere 84 performances at the Lincoln Center. Like Tony Kushner and Jeanine Tesori’s Caroline, or Change, Parade will have its reputation enhanced, if not necessarily commercially endorsed with a West End transfer, by this London reprieve.

The script by Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy) tells the chilling true-life story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager in Atlanta, Georgia, who, in 1913, was falsely convicted of murdering a teenage girl on the grounds that...

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Latest User Review

cjb - 25 November 2007:

Bought the CD several years ago and was unimpressed: saw the show on impulse and was bowled over. Like Assassins,Sweeney Todd and Passion, this is not a show for big commercial stages and the Donmar's intimacy served it well. Performances were outstanding and (my current bete noire) the use of mic'ing was admirabl restrained with every voice sounding natural and bell-clear. The emotional impact was impossible to resist, the combination of lyrics/music and storytelling making the hair frequently stand on end and involuntary tears flow. After such indiffernet duds as Bad Girls and the Rent 're-mix' this show reveals the wonder of a well-written musical theatre piece - but one that has to be seen rather than just listened to in the comfort of one's onwn home....

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