Pixie Dust Players to Present PARADE at JCC Metrowest

Pixie Dust Players production of Parade, the Alfred Uhry and Jason Robert Brown musical is taking the stage at the JCC Metrowest Feb. 13 through Feb. 22, and tells the story of the 1913 trial and imprisonment and 1915 lynching of Jewish American Leo Frank in Georgia.

In 1913, Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew living in Georgia, is put on trial for the murder of thirteen-year-old Mary Phagan, a factory worker under his employ. Already guilty in the eyes of everyone around him, a sensationalist publisher and a janitor's false testimony seal Leo's fate. His only defenders are a governor with a conscience and, eventually, his assimilated Southern wife who finds the strength and love to become his greatest champion.

The musical premiered on Broadway in December 1998 and won Tony Awards for Best Book and Best Original Score and six Drama Desk Awards.

The Pixie Dust production features cast members from Morris, Essex, Hunterdon, Union, Monmouth, Ocean, Somerset, Bergen, Passaic and Warren Counties in New Jersey and Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York.

The show tackles religious intolerance, political injustice and racial tension, while exploring the endurance of love and hope against all the odds.

The book by playwright Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy) and a rousing, colorful and haunting score by Jason Robert Brown (Songs For a New World, The Last Five Years, Bridges of Madison County), allows Parade to be a moving examination of the darkest corners of America's history. And a history that might not be as far in the past as one might assume.

Parade the Musical is recommended for ages 13+. Themes include injustice, prejudice, and references to violence. Audience discretion advised.