Director Matt Toronto (graduate-directing) said the show is very powerfully written and compelling.
"When I heard it the first time I fell in love with it," he said.
The Tony Award-winning musical by Jason Robert Brown and Alfred Uhry is far from well known. Parade was forced to close on Broadway after only two months because of financing issues with the show's production company. Toronto, however, does not see this as an obstacle.
"They weren't able to keep the show going on Broadway, so it wasn't given a chance to find its audience," Toronto said.
"Because of that, I'm excited to bring it to a place like State College, because not many people have heard of it. So often, musicals that aren't well known tend to be second rate, but this show is really fantastic."
The show deals with many issues still prevalent in today's world, especially prejudice. Toronto hopes the audience will see how the search for justice can go awry.
"Sometimes society finds a scapegoat in an effort to bring justice, like for this little girl's murder," Toronto said.
"They blindly find the first person that they can take their emotional pain out on. A major issue is prejudice, with Leo being Jewish. For me, the title implied that the story is one man versus this parade, almost a mob.
It is a warning that if we're not careful, even if we think we're doing the right thing, we can end up perverting justice in the worst way."
The intensity of the show and the complex score require cast members to be excellent singers as well as great actors, Toronto said.
Cast member Kendall Thornburgh (senior-musical theatre) said Toronto's directing ability has greatly contributed to the show's quality.
"He is a wonderful director, and a real actor's director," Thornburgh said.
Thornburgh plays Leo's wife, Lucille. Portraying a character from nearly a century ago proved to be a very different experience for her.
"The women back then were really reserved, which is totally different from how I am," she said.
"They didn't stand up for themselves, and they didn't have jobs. They couldn't speak their minds, which is so different from today, so that was a challenge for me."
Parade displays a large cast of 38, which can make rehearsing difficult but rewarding, said Geo Seery (junior-musical theatre), who plays Governor John Slaton.
"It's challenging, having such a large cast, because it makes the working process quite a bit slower because there are so many bodies," Seery said.
"At the same time, it gives you a great opportunity to work with a lot of different people on stage."
Andrew Leggieri (junior-musical theatre), who plays Leo Frank, said the show benefits from a large cast.
"There's a lot of prejudice in the show," he said, "so with 30 people on stage with that mindset, screaming at you, it becomes very intense and very real."
