Parade at Kennedy Center Opera House

Broadway’s Tony Award®-winning rendition of Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry’s adored Parade will launch a national tour across North America in 2025. Helmed by Tony Award® winning director Michael Arden, Parade boasts music and lyrics by 3x Tony Award® winner Jason Robert Brown, including crowd favorites like “The Dream of Atlanta,” “You Don’t Know This Man,” and “Rumblin’ and a Rollin’.” Embarking in January 2025, the show will start at the Orpheum Theatre in Minneapolis and make its way to the esteemed Kennedy Center Opera House. “When Jason Robert Brown’s and Alfred Uhry’s masterpiece played its record-breaking and sold-out runs at New York City Center and on Broadway, it was heralded by critics for its stellar performances, magnificent score, impassioned direction, and of course, its timeliness,” said the Parade producing team. “We are honored that we can bring Parade to audiences across North America so that they too can experience this once in a lifetime production in this moment in history.” Secure your places now and catch the Parade before it passes by!

Parade Tickets

“A timely, riveting, and gorgeously sung Broadway revival” – Jesse Green, The New York Times

Kennedy Center Opera House

Kennedy Center Opera House is the go-to live performance venue to experience the Parade in all its glory. Much like this Tony Award®-winning production, Kennedy Center Opera House inspires audiences every season. Known and loved around the world as Washington’s premier venue, Kennedy Center Opera House provides the perfect backdrop for critically acclaimed musicals like Parade. Fit with all the flashy effects that you would expect from Broadway’s biggest bonanzas, the venue goes hand in hand with a production as striking as Parade. This run is a super exciting addition to Washington’s entertainment calendar, which you can’t afford to miss!!

Synopsis

Parade tells the true story of Leo Frank in the early 20th century. He and his newly wedded wife Lucille Frank are a Jewish couple who are struggling to make a life in the old red hills of Georgia. It is 1913, and Leo Frank was wrongfully accused. He was convicted of murdering a 13-year-old girl in Atlanta, Georgia. Leo Frank’s trial, conviction and death saw national attention to antisemitism which arrived into the south, and led to the Anti-Defamation League being established, as well as the revival of the then-obsolete Ku Klux Klan. When Leo Frank was accused of the awful crime, it threw them into an unthinkable test of faith, morality, justice, and loyalty. Gripping and wonderfully hopeful, Parade reminds spectators that to love, we must genuinely see each other.

“The story of Leo Frank is more important than ever to re-examine, and it is my hope that audiences are both inspired and activated to reflect on both the past failure and the enduring promise of the complicated tapestry we call America,” says director Michael Arden.

“Ben Platt stuns in a powerful Broadway production of an essential American musical” – Frank Rizzo, Variety 

Creative Team

Parade boasts a book by the 2x Tony Award-winner, Pulitzer Prize winner, and Academy Award-winner Alfred Uhry; music and lyrics by the 3x Tony Award-winner Jason Robert Brown, and is co-conceived by 21x Tony Award-winning hero Harold Prince. Michael Arden is back to recreate his Tony Award-winning direction, teaming up with his beloved Broadway creative team, including the undeniably talented Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant (choreography), Kimberlee Wertz (music coordination), Dane Laffrey (scenic design), Susan Hilferty (costume design), Heather Gilbert (lighting design), Jon Weston (sound design), Sven Ortel (projection design), Tom Watson (hair and wig design), as well as Telsey + Co’s Craig Burns (casting).

“Parade has been a seminal piece of theater for me as an artist since it premiered 25 years ago, and to be collaborating with this incredible group of producers, designers, and artists led by the brilliant Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond is truly a dream come true,” Michael Arden says. The cast for the forthcoming North American run will be announced soon. Parade flaunted its final performance on Broadway in August 2023, with a critically revered cast that featured Ben Platt, Micaela Diamond, Alex Joseph Grayson, Sean Allan Krill, Howard McGillin, as well as Paul Alexander Nolan.

History and Awards

Originally spearheaded by visionary director Harold Prince, the production debuted on Broadway in 1998, clinching an impressive nine Tony nominations, and securing two awards for its compelling book and stunning score. Fast forward to 2007 and a major revision premiered at London’s Donmar Warehouse, later arriving at LA’s Mark Taper Forum in 2009. The rendition uses the revisions from the musical’s London premiere. Michael Arden’s Parade launched with a 2022 limited run at New York City Center. Most of the praised cast continued on with the Broadway transfer, including Ben Platt as Leo Frank as well as Micaela Diamond as Lucille Frank. The remake won two well-earnt Tony Awards in 2023, including the likes of Best Revival of a Musical and Best Direction of a Musical for Arden.

Review

“Co-choreographers Lauren Yalango-Grant and Christopher Cree Grant make the sweep of history move with grace and flair. Sven Ortel’s projections of vintage photographs of the actual characters, settings and headlines are a constant reminder of the real world and its actual history. This theatrically thrilling revival of “Parade” teaches lessons that still need to be learned from a wicked past that haunts us still.” – Variety

“Ben Platt and Michela Diamond’s show-stopping, cathartic duets are reason enough to see the show” – Adrian Horton, The Guardian