Trivia / Parade (1998)

• Acclaimed Flop: It won Tonys for best book / score, and a host of Drama Desk Awards, but closed after only two and a half months on Broadway. Subsequent productions around the world have since cemented its reputation as a modern classic.
• Acting for Two: Depending on how large the cast is, actors may play multiple parts, although it is somewhat traditional for the Old Confederate Soldier to double with Judge Roan. It's also common for the actor playing the Young Confederate Soldier to double as Frankie Epps.
• Cut Song: "Big News," "It Goes On and On," "People of Atlanta," and "Letter to the Governor" from the London production and subsequent productions.
  • Productions that add the character of Minnie Mcknight will cut the song "Newt Lee's Testimony" and its accompanying reprise in Act 2, replacing them both with "Minnie's Testimony" and its own reprise.
• Deleted Role: In the original production of Parade, the song "People of Atlanta" was sung by a character named Fiddlin' John Carson, a real life country music singer who played a song called "The Ballad of Mary Phagan" outside Leo's trial, urging the jury to pass a guilty verdict. Given his rather random appearance in the plot, he and his song were cut from the Donmar Warehouse production as, according to Jason Robert Brown, "he was just one more goddamn person for the audience to keep track of". "People of Atlanta" was replaced by "Hammer of Justice", a song for Tom Watson, a much more important character.
• Demoted to Extra: Britt Craig's overall role has been reduced since the original Broadway run. Jason Robert Brown has stated that, originally, Craig was meant to serve as a pseudo narrator for the story of Parade, so he wrote "Big News" as Craig's big introductory number. As the process went on, however, Brown realized that Craig was simply not important enough to Leo's story to warrant all of the focus the show placed on him, especially given that Craig had nothing to do in Act 2 outside of delivering Leo's ring to Lucille. Because of this, most productions cut "Big News" and Craig's Act 2 opener "It Goes On and On", while keeping the more plot relevant "Real Big News". While he's still important to the story, he is now firmly a supporting player as opposed to a major one.
  • Luther Rosser, Leo's attorney, is a role that gets smaller and smaller with each major production of Parade. Originally, Rosser was a major supporting role who appeared in both acts of the show. Nowadays, Rosser ONLY appears in Act 1, with every single one of his appearances in Act 2 being cut (including the scene where Leo fires him and a scene where he confronts Dorsey at Slaton's party). In his remaining scenes, his lines have been cut down, particularly at the trial. In fact, the 2023 production changed Leo's Statement so that the idea to give the statement is Leo's, as opposed to the original production where Leo's statement is entirely Rosser's idea. After intermission, Rosser vanishes for the rest of the show in modern productions.
  • In the original Broadway production, Newt Lee gave a testimony at Leo's trial and later reprised it during Governor Slaton and Lucille's investigation in Act 2. He also performed in the song "A Rumblin' and a Rollin'" alongside the characters of Riley, Angela, and Jim Conley. For the Donmar Warehouse production, however, in order to give Angela's actress another role to play, Newt's Testimony and its reprise were replaced by testimonies for the newly added character of Minnie Mcknight. On top of this, "A Rumblin' and a Rollin'" was turned into a duet for Riley and Angela, removing Lee from the song. As such, Lee's only major scenes in modern productions of Parade are his song "I am Trying to Remember", and a scene where he is interrogated by Dorsey. The 2023 production added Lee back in to "A Rumblin' and a Rollin'", though he mostly serves as backing vocals as opposed to a soloist in the song.
• Inspiration for the Work: Some of the lyrics of "The Old Red Hills of Home" were inspired by the epitaph on the real Mary Phagan's tombstone, which begins, "In this day of fading ideals and disappearing land marks, Little Mary Phagan's heroism is an heirloom, than which there is nothing more precious among the old red hills of Georgia."
• What Could Have Been: Alfred Uhry and Hal Prince initially wanted Stephen Sondheim to be the lyricist-composer, but the latter was busy with Passion.
• Working Title: I Love A Parade. Wanting it to be ironic but not misleading, the writers shortened it to Parade.