Performances & Events

Parade

“A mesmerizing, powerful, heart-breaking and beautifully sung production! Euan Morton makes a wonderful, shy, numb, stunned and frustrated Leo Frank. Parade is brutally honest and brilliant theatre.” -Maryland Theatre Guide

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“What a talented group of performers delivering a timeless message. It was such an emotional and outstanding performance.” -Deanna DeMember, Ford’s Theatre Facebook, 9/26/11

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Book by Alfred Uhry
Music and Lyrics by Jason Robert Brown
Co-conceived by Harold Prince
Musical Direction by Steven Landau
Choreographed by Karma Camp
Directed by Stephen Rayne
September 23-October 30, 2011

The Tony Award-winning musical drama Parade is based on the true story of Leo Frank’s trial and lynching in early 20th-century Atlanta. Ostracized for his faith and Northern heritage, Jewish factory manager Leo Frank is accused of murdering a teenaged factory girl the day of the annual Confederate Memorial Day parade. Alfred Uhry’s award-winning book and Jason Robert Brown’s rousing, colorful and haunting score illuminate a circus of conflicting accounts, false testimony and mishandled evidence in a town reeling with social and racial tension. Isolated from the world, Leo develops a new and deeper love for his wife, who tirelessly crusades for his freedom. Stephen Rayne (The Heavens Are Hung In Black, Sabrina Fair) directs this compelling and provocative tale of justice miscarried, revealing a country at odds with its declarations of equality. Tony-Award nominee Euan Morton stars as Leo Frank.

Part of the Lincoln Legacy Project, a five-year effort to create a dialogue in our nation’s capital around the issues of tolerance, equality and acceptance.

Parade is a co-production with Theater J and presented in association with the Lincoln Legacy partners.

Tickets start at $15.

“Parade … is the latest, bravest and boldest effort yet to lift the American musical to a new level, and perhaps a new era, of artistry. Brown's abundant music is the show's heartbeat—soft, stirring, tense, explosive or lyric as the story demands.” - Chicago Tribune

This production is not recommended for children younger than 13, due to mature content.

As part of The Lincoln Legacy Project, Ford’s Theatre will offer facilitated discussions to interested audience members immediately following each evening performance of Parade (except September 26 and 27). These 20-minute discussions give audiences an opportunity to engage in a dialogue on the themes and issues raised in the performance. To learn more about the Leo Frank story, read And the Dead Shall Rise. The Original Broadway Cast Recording of Parade is available in our online store.

Lincoln Legacy Project Founding Sponsor: Ronald O. Perelman, Chairman and CEO, MacAndrews & Forbes Holdings Inc.
Lead Sponsor: Oshkosh Corporation
Sponsors: Lockheed Martin; Qualcomm

Funded in part by the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities, an agency supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Official Media Partner: The Washington Post