Hamilton is hardly the first musical to win a Tony for dramatizing a piece of our nation’s history, although Parade is closer to Les Miserables in terms of tone and music. Director Kari Hayter, the woman behind this year’s Urinetown at the Coeurage Theatre Co. in Los Angeles, is excited to be staging Parade at Anaheim’s Chance Theater at a moment in time when the play’s themes of racial tension, religious intolerance and the media breeding hysteria are uncannily relevant.
Related: Anaheim’s Chance Theater Is Utterly Charming
Parade, 1999’s Tony winner for Best Book and Best Score, follows the trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank (played in this production by Allen Everman), who was accused and convicted of the rape and murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan (Gabrielle Adner) in Atlanta in 1913. In real life, the trial’s impact was felt far beyond the Georgia communities directly affected by it, as it contributed to both a resurgence of the KKK and the formation of the Anti-Defamation League.
I asked Kari what drew her to Parade and what makes this production special, and she gave me a behind-the-scenes peek that has me eager to see the show.
Leona Laurie: Whose idea was it to stage Parade at Chance?
Kari Hayter: It was kind of the perfect marriage. I had just directed it at Cal State Northridge (where Kari is an Assistant Professor in the Theatre Department) in the Spring a year ago, and it got some attention, and (Chance’s) Artistic Director was really interested in the concept. I had kind of approached it in a different way than it might normally be done, and I think he was intrigued by that and was interested in a conversation about what my vision was for it. He was excited about it and said, “Well, let’s do it here!”
LL: In your words, what is this play?
KH: It’s sort of a courtroom drama. It takes place in 1913, and Leo Frank, who was a Brooklyn-raised Jew living in Georgia, is put on trial for the murder of a little girl, Mary Phagan, who worked for him at his pencil factory. It’s all about the trial and the community coming together to make sure that he doesn’t get away with it—but it’s questionable if he did it or not. It’s about religious intolerance and political injustice and racial tension, and it’s really about a community wanting to come together and fight for something that they believe in. It’s about how he is most likely, possibly, wrongly accused of the crime.
LL: Is it fun at all? It sounds so heavy.
KH: It is very heavy, but it’s musically gorgeous. I mean it won Best Book and Best Score. The music is really, really rich.
Is it fun? I don’t know if fun is the word, but it’s gripping; it’s moving; it’s exciting… Really it is about the effect of the media on a community, which is what we are experiencing right now with Donald Trump and the media and Twitter and Facebook and everything. It was a really complicated political climate in 1913, as it is now. We’re sort of experiencing a similar moment of tension in our own political history.
The characters are rich; they’re real. It’s definitely not so “dirgy” that it’s depressing. It’s similar to Les Mis—I mean, Les Mis is dark, but people keep flocking to theatres to see Les Mis and to see that moment of history, which is not the happiest story in the world either. But there is something really exciting about watching that history unfold—especially when the music is so fantastic. People love the music, and I think that’s what Parade has going for it as well.
LL: What was it about your take on the show that appealed to the Chance Theater’s artistic director?
KH: I try to emphasize the story and the people, rather than a world that could possibly detract from it with lots of scenery and lots of lighting and lots of the “magic” of musical theatre—what we think of as big, massive, grand musicals. I tried to strip away the environment and get to the meat of the story, and so we have a beautiful set and lighting design, but the concept behind the telling of the story is done with a raked stage– a bare, blank stage and 18 chairs.
I feel like it’s a creative way of telling the story. It leaves a lot to the audience’s imagination, and focuses on the relationships and the narrative. It’s a much more intimate approach. I believe there are 99 seats in the theatre, so any seat is a good seat.
Sometimes scenery that depicts the historical moment kind of makes you feel removed from that time period. I feel like this makes it more accessible to a contemporary audience, because we can relate to human beings, and that’s what we’re watching the whole play. We don’t have anything masking anything or telling us this is a different time, and we don’t have to go there. You’re really with the people, and you’re really seeing it happen in a intimate, bold way.
RELATED: We Need More Women Behind the Scenes in Entertainment Media
LL: Are you stripped down with costumes, too?
KH: No. That is one area where we felt it should look authentic. We went 100% with costumes.
LL: In a theatre this small, how will you do the music?
KH: We have live musicians. They’re not visible, but they are definitely playing back behind the set. They’re fantastic.
LL: Is there anyone in the cast you’ve worked with before or are especially excited about working with this time?
KH: Allen Everman, who plays Leo Franks, I’d never even met him until this production. He just kind of came out of thin air, and he’s absolutely fantastic. I couldn’t ask for a better Leo. He really, really understands the role, and he brings so much depth and heart to it.
Some of them are my students from CSUN, and it’s nice to have worked with them in a college environment and now sort of graduate with them onto the professional stage.
LL: Thank you so much for your time, Kari! I’m really looking forward to seeing the show—now that you’ve given me some insight into it!
KH: I do think people go, “Oh, gosh, this is a musical about a lynching. I don’t know how I feel about going out to see that.”
But I think if they knew how universal the themes were and how exciting the story is, especially the way in which we’re telling it, I think it would get people really excited about coming. I’m hoping word spreads that this is a different production, and not what people thought, and that the story touches them. I feel like if we can reach people, then we’ve done our job.
***
Here’s the selection performed at the Tonys in 1999, which contributed to my interest in seeing the Chance production:
Parade runs at the Chance Theater in Anaheim, CA, from June 30 – July 30. The play runs 2 hours, 30 minutes with intermission and is recommended for ages 13 and above. For more information, a full cast list and tickets, please visit https://chancetheater.com/production/parade/.
- WANDAVISION Finale Recap: (S01E09) The Series Finale - March 5, 2021
- WANDAVISION Recap: (S01E08) Previously On - February 28, 2021
- WANDAVISION Recap: (S01E07) Breaking the Fourth Wall - February 19, 2021
