When Alfred Uhry was a kid in Atlanta in the 1940鈥檚, nobody in his family would ever talk about a lynching that had taken place in Georgia 21 years before he was born鈥搕he lynching, not of a black man, not of a white man, a Jew, named Leo Frank.
鈥淚 suppose it was just too horrible,鈥� says Uhry. 鈥淲ell, not too horrible, but too painful a memory, because they鈥� 鈥搕he affluent, 100 percent American parents and grandparents he鈥檇 so lovingly re-created in Driving Miss Daisy and The Last Night of Ballyhoo鈥斺渉ad been victims of the anti-Semitism that flared up in Atlanta as a consequence.
At 4 A.M. Sunday, April 27, 1913, the night watchman of the National Pencil Company factory in Marietta, Georgia, an Atlanta suburb, came upon the raped and strangled body of Mary Phagan, a pretty 13-year-old who worked at the factory attaching the metal eraser clasps to the ends of the pencils. She鈥檇 come that Saturday鈥擟onfederate Memorial Day, the day of a big parade, so she was dressed in her finest鈥攖o pick up $1.80 owed her in back pay, collecting it from Leo Frank, the tense, bespectacled newlywed who鈥檇 come from Brooklyn to Atlanta to run the pencil factory and who, as a workaholic, was at his desk that Saturday.
Arrest, tried and convicted largely on the basis of testimony from an illiterate sweeper named Jim Conley鈥斺渢he first time in the history of the South,鈥� says Uhry, 鈥渢hat a jury believed the testimony of a black man over that of a white man鈥濃攖he same Leo Frank two years later, on Aug. 16, 1915, after the case had become an international cause celebre, and after a gutsy Gov. John M Slaton had commuted the death sentence to life imprisonment, was yanked at midnight from his bed in the state pen at Milledgeville, Georgia, by 25 armed members of a group calling themselves The Knights of Mary Phagan, and hauled back and hanged by them from an oak tree in Marietta. All Georgia rejoiced.
鈥淚 knew the Leo Frank story, but not in any depth,鈥� says Harold Prince, director of Parade, the new musical at the Vivian Beaumont Theater starring Brent Carver鈥攖he brilliant Molina of Kander & Ebb鈥檚 Kiss of the Spider Woman (also directed by Prince)鈥攁s Leo Frank. 鈥淪o when Alfred [Uhry] proposed it as a Broadway show, I thought it was a wonderful idea.
鈥淲hy? Because it鈥檚 impossibly difficult when you first look at it. What I鈥檝e learned over the years is that the impossibly difficult ideas are the best ideas. The challenge is to unlock them. It鈥檚 the easy, can鈥檛-miss ideas that are always a problem for me. I mean,鈥� says Prince,
everybody鈥檚 got a Gone With the Wind in his or her own head. But Kiss of the Spider Woman? West Side Story? Leo Frank? 罢丑补迟鈥檚 when they scratch heads in surprise. And the other thing, it also involved a certain work ethic.鈥�
The libretto of Parade, then, is by warm, affable 61-year-old Alfred Uhry; the music and lyrics by 28-year-old Jason Robert Brown, a young man who was first brought to Prince鈥檚 attention by the young woman who鈥檇 directed Brown鈥檚 Songs for a New World at Off-Broadway鈥檚 WPA Theatre鈥擯rince鈥檚 daughter Daisy.
There were aspects of the Leo Frank case that had always particularly interested Uhry鈥攁part from the fact that his great-Uncle Sigmund Montag, his mother鈥檚 uncle, once owned the National Pencil Factory that became the Scripto factory.
鈥淔irst, the love story,鈥� he says. 鈥淟eo Frank had been married only a couple of years to an Atlanta girl named Lucille Selig [played by Carolee Carmello]. I think it was sort of an arranged marriage, but now they fell in love, she became his voice, led a big crusade to save him, got the Governor to review the case. She never left Atlanta, never remarried, never changed her name, lived out her life as what they called a vendeuse at a local dress store; and when I was a little boy, she was one of my grandmother鈥檚 old lady friends鈥濃攜es, the same grandmother the world would get to know so well when she鈥檚 being driven around town in the back seat of that big old car.
鈥淭he other person who fascinated me,鈥� says Uhry, 鈥渋s Gov. Slaton [actor John Hickok]. He was a young, good-looking fellow on his way to being Senator. His term as Governor was almost up; he could have passed the ball along to the next guy. But he gave this wonderful speech鈥� 鈥楾wo-thousand years ago, another governor washed his hands of a case like this鈥� I don鈥檛 want to be like that.鈥欌� Throughout the South, Slaton was excoriated. His political career was wrecked, finished.
In Uhry鈥檚 memory, the moment he first broached the Leo Frank idea to Prince, the director jumped up from his chair exclaiming, 鈥�罢丑补迟鈥檚 the musical I鈥檝e been waiting for!鈥� In Hal Prince鈥檚 memory, 鈥渢he minute I heard about Leo Frank, I thought it had to be Brent Carver. Brent鈥檚 such a charismatic, interesting and complex person, on and offstage. I love enigmas鈥攖he kind of personality you can鈥檛 get a handle on. The danger of it, which creates such excitement onstage. You鈥檝e got to admire a guy who wins a Tony Award [as Molina] and, instead of going to Hollywood, goes home to Canada to play Cyrano de Bergerac.鈥�
