I assisted Warren Carlyle on A Tale of Two Cities on Broadway, I shadowed the producing team on Newsies, and interned as a lighting designer. I had also assisted and shadowed quite a bit while I was pursuing acting. We even used my own furniture and clothes in the production-some of which I still haven’t gotten back-and the rest is history! I proposed the idea and again raised money on Kickstarter. It was a show I had long loved, and wanted to see through a different lens. Soon after, Deaf West reached out to me and asked if I would ever want to direct something for them, and my husband, Andy Mientus, suggested that I direct Spring Awakening. We only invited ten people to be in the audience each night, that’s how small it was, but those people proved to be incredibly supportive. I raised money on Kickstarter and put together a site-specific, immersive, promenade production. So, I wrote an adaptation of Schnitzler’s play La Ronde for my friends in LA who missed theater. We shot 100 episodes of the show, and during that time I was really missing theater and I knew that a lot of my peers were as well. I was living in Los Angeles acting on a television series called Anger Management. You’ve played many roles in the entertainment industry. Micaela Diamond and Ben Platt in New York City Center’s Gala Presentation of Parade Joan Marcus What I love about this Parade, and why I think I most wanted to direct it, is that it’s not as concerned with attributing guilt or innocence as it is examining how America’s cyclical traumatic history has so often distorted and weaponized the ideals of justice to which we pledge allegiance. My task is to starkly and clearly present a dramatically exciting and honest exploration of this sensational story to audiences so that might become active participants in the proceedings. I feel that in approaching Parade now at City Center, I don’t need to reinvent the piece. Parade opened a world of possibility in my mind in which musicals were able to tackle dark and real stories that could pull at the strings of our hidden prejudices, traumas, and still-reverberating shame. Hal Prince’s beautiful staging and the brilliant company led by Carolee Carmello and the late great Brent Carver added even more fuel to the fire of my interest in the show. Soon after, I moved to New York to attend the Juilliard School and spent as much time as legally possible inside the Lincoln Center Performing Arts Library, where I was able to watch the archival recording of the Lincoln Center production of Parade. It quickly became one of my favorite musicals - a score I was obsessed with, and a story that both frightened and fascinated me. I found Jason’s score both terrifying and heartbreaking, and Alfred’s characters honest, complex, and surprising. As I tried to piece the story together from the compact disc liner notes, I remember being amazed that a musical could tackle such subject matter and dramatically humanize it. The murder of Mary Phagan and subsequent lynching of Leo Frank certainly wasn’t something I had been taught in History class in West Texas. I was fascinated with the story of Parade. Like so many musical theatre lovers who grew up outside New York in the time before the Internet, Best Buy was my Shubert Alley. From the moment I first heard the opening number on the cast album, I was a fan. I first fell in love with Parade as a high schooler in Midland, Texas. Parade first premiered on Broadway in 1998 and won two Tony Awards. Below, director Michael Arden (who has directed the Broadway revivals of Spring Awakeningand Once on This Island), discusses how a trip to Best Buys in high school sparked his love for Parade and why the musical is still frighteningly relevant today. The story, and the musical, is a searing indictment of anti-Semitism, group-think, and miscarriage of justice. Frank was a Jewish man living in Georgia in 1913, who was wrongfully convicted of murder. Parade, a revival of the Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry musical, is inspired by the tragic real-life story of Leo Frank. It seems like an unlikely topic for a best-seller. The musical is currently receiving a limited run at New York City Center, running only until November 6. One of the hottest tickets in New York City right now is Parade, starring Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond.
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