Washington Post - Somewhat Recommended
"... And yet, “Parade” — the 1998 Broadway musical exploring the lingering Southern resentment and festering anti-Semitism that gave rise to the atrocity — is only partly satisfying precisely because a sense of moral revulsion is the only strong feeling engendered by this somber and stately show."
DCist - Recommended
"... Parade has a powerful, unconventional score from contemporary composer Jason Robert Brown, whose melodies keep you guessing -- bluesy one minute, dirge-influenced the next. The show's love ballads between the gradually reconnecting Leo and Lucille are particularly stirring, from the triumphant "This Is Not Over Yet" to the plaintive "All The Wasted Time"."
MetroWeekly - Recommended
"... Parade unfolds like a high-minded sermon about a decent man caught in the wrong place -- the South -- at the wrong time: when a prejudicial swirl of racism and anti-Semitism poisoned a populace still nursing the wounds of the Civil War. In his Atlanta surroundings, Brooklyn-bred Leo is already nervous to a breaking point by the time 13-year-old Mary Phagan (Lauren Williams) is attacked and killed at the National Pencil Factory on Confederate Memorial Day, the event that lends a parade motif to the show's title."
WeLoveDC - Recommended
"... Today, it’s hard to turn on the television news or log onto your local or national newspaper’s website without seeing a variation of an act of hate as a headline. Parade reminds its audience that blind hatred toward someone for being who they are is nothing more than a disgusting and vile act. But despite all that hate, there is still the hope that tomorrow might bring change and hate will soon become a distant memory. That is the story of Leo and Lucille Frank."
Talkin Broadway - Highly Recommended
"... Ford's Theatre in Washington is kicking off its five-year Lincoln Legacy Project—a community dialogue examining issues of tolerance, equality and acceptance—with a stirring and beautifully sung production of Parade."
Washington City Paper - Somewhat Recommended
"... Mostly, though, despite efforts institutional and individual, the show still seems like a sermon at heart. “Relive this horror,” it says, “and learn from it.” That’s admirable, in histories and in museums and in pulpits. In the theater, character and story do the work of historian and curator and priest. They’re what’s lacking here."
Washingtonian - Recommended
"... Parade is compelling and occasionally brilliant, but it would be a better show if the first act was shorter. Call me a Yankee, but the seemingly endless paeans to the glory of the old South just slowed the pace too much for me. Act Two moved along and had better music too to boot."
BrightestYoungThings - Recommended
"... With everything we read on the news about hate and bigotry in the world, Parade presents an important example of how flowing thoughtlessly in a crowd can really be problematic. So go for a great history lesson and a fab love story."
Washington Jewish Week - Somewhat Recommended
"... Parade, in this its dramatic musical form, must not just remain a noble effort to keep alive a cause celebre. Yet as an artistic endeavor it simply falls short of captivating audiences, even in the well-heeled production helmed by Ford's, with co-producing credit to Theater J. Parade remains a history lesson couched in song, but doesn't soar into full-fledged drama that touches the heart and spirit."
Washington Blade - Recommended
"... Sure-handedly staged by Stephen Rayne, the production moves at a good clip. Set designer Tony Cisek imagines the newly industrialized Atlanta as two tiers of red brick arches that serve variously as factory, courthouse, jail, governor’s mansion and the Frank home. Two towering columns –each in unchecked stages of decay — stand as fading remnants of a prouder, more glorious South. And Wade Laboissonniere’s many period costumes are spot on and superbly rendered."
The Georgetowner - Somewhat Recommended
"... The approach doesn’t always work. The casual use of non-traditional casting in having African-American actors be members of crowds celebrating the Confederacy seems somehow altogether wrong, for instance. The music is often stirring, or, in quieter pieces with Frank and his wife, lovely and touching. Then again, songs pop up like period pieces from the times, and then again, you get a piece like “A Rumblin and a Rollin’,” which opens the second act, sung by black servants at a party with almost teeth-bared bitterness, a song that nicely is a bookend to a young Civil War-era soldier singing “The Old Red Hills of Home” setting off for war."
TheaterMania - Somewhat Recommended
"... Despite first-rate performances by its leading players, there's something ultimately missing in the new production of Parade, which has a book by Pulitzer Prize winner Alfred Uhry and score by Jason Robert Brown, being co-presented by Ford's Theatre and Theater J."
MD Theatre Guide - Highly Recommended
"...Jason Robert Brown’s Tony Award-winning score for Parade is filled with gorgeous ballads, hymns, marches, and waltzes. Alfred Uhry’s Tony Award-winning book not only tells the true story of this miscarriage of justice, but also includes the love story of Leo and Lucille, and this makes it so much more emotionally devastating when Leo is hanged."
DCTheatreScene - Recommended
Much of the show’s subdued majesty can be attributed to Jason Robert Brown’s score that blends period tunes with a ragtime and bluesy feel with soaring ballads and well-drawn character songs. His muted composition is given colorations by the superb cast, led by the silken vocals and steely focus of Mr. Morton. With delicacy and understatement, Mr. Morton portrays Leo Frank as a black-and-white man in a pastel world.
