(Lyn Gardner’s article appeared in the Guardian, 8/30.)
Just four years after a superb chamber production at the Donmar Warehouse in London, Jason Robert Brown's unlikely musical gets a deserved revival, and it's a cracker. Alfred Uhry's book is inspired by the story of Leo Frank, a Brooklyn Jew who moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his wife to take up the post of superintendent at a pencil factory. In 1913 he was accused of murdering one of his workers, a 13-year-old girl. His case became a cause celebre for northern liberals, who hadn't previously taken much notice of the defeated south's propensity for dishing out rough justice to its black population.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/stage/2011/aug/30/parade-southwark-playhouse-review