CCM Musical Theatre is front and center onstage at The Carnegie, and looking and sounding like ?stars of tomorrow? as College-Conservatory of Music partners with Covington?s arts center on the riveting and musically captivating drama ?Parade.?
Based on the notorious Leo Frank case in Atlanta that began in 1913, ?Parade? has a torn from the headlines feel. The show?s creators wear their politics on their sleeves, choosing some facts and leaving out others, but there?s no arguing that fear and violent resentment of The Other is still rampant today.
?Parade? follows Frank?s story, beginning on the day of the murder of Mary Phagan (Alison Bagli). Frank (Collin Kessler), a chilly Jewish Yankee, is supervisor at the factory where Mary worked and where her body was found. It continues for two years, through his trial and its aftermath.
Its brilliance is that Jason Robert Brown?s score employs buoyant rags, ballads, sing-it-to-the-rafters solos, chorales and book writer Alfred Uhry finds a love story, as the musical suggests that Frank and his wife Lucille (Jenny Hickman) find each other in their tragedy.
Hickman gives strong support as a wife who becomes a tower of strength but it?s Kessler who shines in ?Parade,? mining his character and finding emotions stark and subtle through Frank?s terrifying two years.
On The Carnegie?s small stage ?Parade? has the intimate feel of a chamber musical, although it has cast of more than 20. Dee Anne Bryll and Ed Cohen direct with vision and assurance and Bryll gives the show just the right amount of choreographic flourishes to set the era and the mood.
Scenic designer Dana Hill?s setting is spare and effective: a few low platforms, panels paned to suggest factory windows, projections the most important of which is the silhouette of a tree in full summer bloom. Janet Powell?s costumes establish a wide range of social classes and changing locations as the drama plays out.
CCM students can sing, and they demonstrate just how well here, with great emotional understanding under the musical direction of Steve Goers, who also did wonderful work earlier this season with ?Chess? at CCM.
Credit Goers with mastering The Carnegie?s sound challenges, with the assistance of sound designer Kevin Semancik. (On opening night there were no issues until late in the second act.)
?Parade? tightly weaves motives stacked against Frank: politically ambitious prosecutor and newspaper editor; a reporter whose career ascends with every screaming headline; and an easily manipulated population. Anti-Semitism boils over but ?Parade? also suggests the frenzy is compounded in a city where Civil War veterans are a living reminder of the North?s ongoing sins against the South.
Noah Ricketts gives a powerhouse performance as the factory janitor who damns Frank in the courtroom testimony ?That?s What He Said.? Charlie Meredith is also a stand-out as the smarmily charming reporter who doesn?t worry about facts and delivers big with ?Big News.? (Catch him in Showboat Majestic?s ?Forever Plaid? this summer.)
Good work comes from Matt Hill as the district attorney; Bagli as lively Mary, who has a charming streetcar ride with Eric Gell in ?The Picture Show?;?and the trio of Lawson Young, Emily Trumble and Taylor Alexander as friends of Mary?s.
?Parade,? through April 21, The Carnegie, 1028 Scott Blvd., Covington. Tickets $19-$26. 859-957-1940 and www.thecarnegie.com.
Read the full review at Cincinnati.com. Follow me on Twitter @jmdemaline
Posted in: Updates
Source: http://cincinnati.com/blogs/arts/2013/04/06/review-parade-the-carnegieccm-musical-theatre/
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