Jason Robert Brown

Sunday Telegraph, 30 September 2007 ON A SERIOUS NOTE… Tim Walker, Theatre Parade (five stars) Tragedy has befallen a little girl: the police are briefing the press, politicians and lawyers are piling in, and, on the front pages, reputations are being blackened. The locals – as well as people who live hundreds, if not thousands, of miles away – are taking entrenched positions on the affair although they know diddly-squat about it. I need hardly say why Parade at the Donmar Warehouse is unnervingly topical. The new musical is based not on any recent events, however, but on the caseRead More »

THEATRE by Mark Shenton 30 September 2007 PARADE (five stars) Donmar Warehouse, London WC2 […]There’s a more tender portrait of a marriage under immeasurable strain in the soul-baring and searching musical Parade, which ran for little over two months in its original 1998 Broadway production but in its far more intimate British premiere proves its thrilling worth. Composer Jason Robert Brown is one of the great hopes for the serious American musical and here has created a score that is a seamless tapestry of mood and feeling, full of heartfelt anthems and yearning ballads. Based on the true story ofRead More »

PARADE Donmar Warehouse, London 2 hrs 30 mins (including interval) Four stars by GEORGINA BROWN Parade, a modern opera by Alfred (Driving Miss Daisy)Uhry, with a wonderful score (mixing the rat-a-tat-tat of military drums with hymns and jazzy dance music of a decade ago) by Jason Robert Brown, tells a compelling true story of Leo Frank, the boss charged with the murder of a 13-year-old labourer found strangled in the pencil factory he ran in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1913. A New York, Ivy League-educated Jew, who doesn’t fit in, Frank is framed. Like Arthur Miller’s Crucible, the piece escalates, drivenRead More »

Quentin Letts’s review here. Fight for truth that’s worth singing about in Parade by QUENTIN LETTS Last updated at 15:11pm on 28th September 2007 Rating: Five stars Verdict: Fresh talents and a sorry injustice Parade seems a misleading title for this troubling musical. ‘Parade’ suggests something fluffy, something with stripy sticks and top hats and gaiety. This show is not entirely dank and gloomy. It has an ingenious, jazzy score with lots of clarinet work and some beautifully fresh singing. The opening song by a young lad called Stuart Matthew Price grips you from the first run of breathy tenorRead More »

PARADE Four stars Donmar Warehouse, 0870 060 6624, until November 24 By JULIE CARPENTER DEVOTEES of the frothy feelgood musical should read no further. Parade is an alothether more thought-provoking affair, based on the real-life trial of a Jewish factory manager, Leo Frank, who was unfairly convicted of the rape and murder of a 13-year-old employee, Mary Phagan, in Georgia in 1913. It’s easy to wonder why such a serious subject has been given the musical treatment but don’t be put off. This is a compelling piece – penned by Alfred Uhry, who wrote Driving Miss Daisy – which isRead More »