Jason Robert Brown

The tragedy of Leo Frank, the Brooklyn-born Jewish businessman who was lynched in 1913 by a Southern mob for a murder he denied committing, seems an uneasy fit for a musical. And though Parade, which is based on the case, won 1999 Tony Awards for Alfred (Driving Miss Daisy) Uhry’s book and Jason Robert Brown’s score, it lasted only three months on Broadway. Since then, Parade has had nearly 200 revivals; that includes an eight-month national tour that Brown conducted. This Saturday, Speakeasy Stage Company opens its production, the largest in its history, with a cast of 29 actors and nine musicians.

“Parade is a show that speaks its own language,” says Brown by phone from Los Angeles, where he teaches in the theater department at the University of Southern California. “It’s not a show like Hello, Dolly! I think it has its own vernacular, especially in the way it moves. What we built into the show was a cinematic quality. We wanted you to feel cornered, like the clock was ticking. I think that’s what some of the negative reviews referred to. Some of the critics thought, ‘This is a musical. Why do you have to punish me?’ ”

The Leo Frank case remains unresolved because the murderer was never found. Frank was a college-educated Jew who had moved to Atlanta to run a pencil factory. When the body of a 13-year-old girl who had worked in the shop was found, he was accused, put on trial, and sentenced to hang. The governor spared his life after two years of appeals, but within weeks Frank was dragged from prison by a mob and lynched, doubtless the victim of Southern resentment of Northerners and anti-Semitism. The visual metaphor of the musical’s title, a Memorial Day Parade, refers to the South’s continued pride in its history.

Uhry and Brown set act one at the time of the crime and the trial; act two covers the two-year appeals process, during which the marriage of Leo and Lucille Frank is strengthened in the face of adversity. Director Paul Daigneault has cast Boston Conservatory graduates Brendan McNab and Elliot Norton Award winner Bridget Beirne as the Franks.

“The story had a special resonance for me,” says Brown. “My three shows — Parade, The Last Five Years, and 13 — all have Jewish male protagonists. I could find [i.e., understand] Leo Frank because I shared a heritage with him. But the thing I understood best about Leo was being an outsider. You can't get around it; Parade is a show in which someone gets lynched. As far as we were concerned, a musical is just another way to express yourself. I don’t have to make a musical out of spangles, feathers, and tap dancing.”

Parade | Speakeasy Stage Company | Calderwood Pavilion at the BCA, 527 Tremont St, Boston | May 12–June 16 | $41-$48; $37-$41 seniors; $14 student rush | 617.933.8600 

On the Web
Speakeasy Stage Company: www.BostonTheatreScene.com