Tonight, I am going to see Parade.
Parade is a musical, book written by Alfred Uhry and music and lyrics by Jason Robert Brown. It opened on Broadway in 1998, and despite being nominated for and winning multiple Tony Awards, including a nomination for Best Musical and wins for Best Book of a Musical and Best Original Musical Score, it ran for only 85 performances -- a far cry from a successful Broadway run. Compare 85
performances to the Broadway run of Cats, which ran for almost 18 years and gave 7485 performances in total.
I'm not trying to knock Cats here -- there is a time and place for everything, including boppy, synthy musicals full of prancing felines -- but I don't think you could make a very strong argument that Cats offers something really substantial to its audience beyond a fun time. Apart from its absolutely beautiful music, Parade offers a re-telling of an unknown historic event, an extremely colorful cast of characters all pushing their own agendas, and -- most importantly -- a powerful story of conflicting passions, redemption, and finding love in the darkest of situations. And yet, audiences weren't enthused enough to warrant the production giving more than 85 performances. It was as if they were saying, "Don't challenge us. We didn't come here for a message of love and redemption against the odds. We came here for a musical."
And now, 10 years later, Parade is coming to Los Angeles for the only the second time, and the first time it is being produced by a major theater company (Center Theatre Group). In the decade since it was originally produced, Jason Robert Brown, the composer, has made a huge name for himself in the theatre world, and the show has created a lot of hype. Center Theatre Group has finally taken it upon themselves to bring this show to Los Angeles. And they've cast TR Knight, of Grey's Anatomy fame, in the lead role. This scares me. The inclusion of a big name TV actor in a musical gives me an impression that the producers don't have their heads in the right place. Is this an opportunity to share an incredibly moving and meaningful story, or is this an opportunity to make money via spectacle and celebrity appearances? Los Angeles audiences are getting excited about this production -- I just hope they're getting excited for the right reasons.
Center Theatre Group's production of Parade has a lot riding on its shoulders. It could seriously change the way that we look at musical theatre as a genre. The script of Parade alone proves that a musical can be so much more than charismatic performances and big ensemble numbers. It uses music to its advantage, creating an atmosphere that is so much more powerful and feverish in telling a story than a normal drama could do. I hope that this production tonight recognizes that. And I'm about to find out.
