Parade

[Born to Boogie]

Those in London may be interested to visit the current revival of Jason Robert Brown's musical 'Parade' at the Vault in the Southwalk Playhouse. Link to the theatre website is below and it is just a very short walk from London Bridge underground station. The run closes on 17th September and tickets are now £22.50 at all performances. The Vault is under a railway arch and all seats are on raked seating no more than 4 rows from the performance space.

http://southwarkplayhouse.co.uk/the-vault/parade/

I saw the production yesterday evening and it is an absolutely outstanding piece of musical theatre performed by an excellent cast in an atmospheric and intimate performance space. The subject matter makes for a challenging and moving piece of theatre which had quite a number of audience members in tears by the end of the second act. It is worth knowing something about the history of the piece if going to see it. More info can obviously be found online, but I've cut and paste some info below to give an idea.

"The musical dramatizes the 1913 trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank, who was accused and convicted of raping and murdering a thirteen-year-old employee, Mary Phagan. The trial, sensationalized by the media, may have aroused some antisemitic tensions in Atlanta and the U.S. state of Georgia. When Frank's death sentence was commuted to life in prison by the departing Governor of Georgia, John M. Slaton due to his detailed review of over 10,000 pages of testimony and possible problems with the trial, Leo Frank was transferred to a prison in Milledgeville, Georgia, where a lynching party seized and kidnapped him. Frank was taken to Phagan's hometown of Marietta, Georgia, and he was hanged from an oak tree. The events surround the investigation and trial led to two groups emerging, the revival of the defunct KKK and the birth of a premier Jewish Civil Rights organization. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) was formed in response to the antisemitism surrounding Leo Frank's trial and lynching. Prince turned to Brown to write the score after Stephen Sondheim turned the project down. Prince's daughter, Daisy, had brought Brown to her father's attention. Uhry, who grew up in Atlanta, had personal knowledge of the Frank story, as his great-uncle owned the pencil factory run by Leo Frank. In dramatizing the story, Prince and Uhry have emphasized the evolving relationship between Leo and his wife Lucille. Their relationship shifts from cold to warm in songs like "Leo at Work/What am I Waiting For?," "You Don't Know This Man," "Do it Alone," and "All the Wasted Time". The poignancy of the couple, who falls in love in the midst of adversity, is the core of the work. It makes the tragic outcome - the miscarriage of justice - even more disturbing. The show was Brown's first Broadway production. His music has "subtle and appealing melodies that draw on a variety of influences, from pop-rock to folk to rhythm and blues and gospel." The plot of the musical dramatizes the historical story and does not shy away from the conclusion of some that the likely killer was the African-American factory janitor Jim Conley, the key witness against Frank at the trial. The true villains of the piece are portrayed as the prosecutor Hugh Dorsey (later the governor of Georgia and then a judge) and the rabid publisher Tom Watson (later elected a U.S. senator)."

Those familiar with the London Billy Elliot Production over a long period of time will recognise Jessica Bastick-Vines who plays Mary Phagan as ex-Ballet Girl Sharon Percy from the Original London Cast and Samantha Seager who plays Mrs Phagan as ex-Dead Mam.

Buy a ticket and go see it if you're in London.