It has been more than a century since Leo Frank, an erudite Brooklyn Jew transplanted to Atlanta, was falsely accused of murdering Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old girl who worked at the pencil factory Frank managed. It was a defining moment for American Jewry that led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League in 1913, the year of Frank’s trial.

Leo Frank’s fate is depicted in “Parade,” the revival of a 1998 musical with a book by Alfred Uhry, who famously explored his southern Jewish roots in the award-winning play “Driving Miss Daisy.” In 2023, “Parade” won the Tony Award for Best Musical Revival.

The national Broadway tour of “Parade” is now coming to Boston for a 12-day run beginning Tuesday, March 11, at the Emerson Colonial Theatre. Laura Mandel, director of program strategy and impact at The Vilna Shul, Boston’s Center for Jewish Culture, will moderate a discussion on opening night with cast members exploring what the play has to say about antisemitism then and now.

“I’m thrilled ‘Parade’ is coming to Boston. It’s a timely story that shows antisemitism is not a closeted issue,” Mandel told JewishBoston. “The play also telegraphs that Leo Frank will always be an important figure in the American Jewish community.”

Mandel further pointed out that white supremacists have demonstrated against productions of the play outside various theaters, including the Broadway run. “Those protests prove how important it is for the arts to combat antisemitism,” she said.

Talia Suskauer, who plays Leo Frank’s wife, Lucille, told JewishBoston: “We’re doing a show that’s not easy, but it’s an important story. When Alfred Uhry first wrote the play in the 1990s, he intended to depict a piece of history. Unfortunately, antisemitism and racism are alive and well, and the play is very topical. The audience can easily relate what’s happening on the stage to life.”

The original revival cast recited the Mourner’s Kaddish for Leo Frank almost every night. While the touring company does not recite the prayer, Suskauer thinks of each performance as a version of the Mourner’s Kaddish for Frank. “By telling the story of Lucille and Leo Frank, we honor their memories,” she said. “It’s essentially a form of Kaddish each night to tell their stories.”

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Suskauer said it’s an honor to play Lucille Frank. “And as a Jewish woman, it’s a great responsibility to tell Lucille’s story,” she added. “She took it upon herself to ask John Salton, the governor of Georgia, to look at the facts of Leo’s case and commute his sentence to life.”

At the time, the flagrant antisemitism of Frank’s case elicited more than 100,000 letters from across the country requesting clemency for him. But a life sentence, with its distant possibility of an appeal, nevertheless provoked a marauding mob of white men—supposedly upstanding citizens of Georgia—to kidnap Frank from his jail cell and lynch him.

Suskauer noted that Lucille Frank was well on her way to saving her husband’s life, and, in some ways, changed the course of Jewish American history. “I hope that in this time when we may feel very powerless, we understand that one person can make a difference,” she said.

Max Chernin, who plays Leo Frank, told JewishBoston in an email that as he read Frank’s letters, he saw that Frank “found strength and hope in the face of such adversity. The company and the crew are the keepers of his story right now, and sharing it and seeing how it resonates with audiences is a gift I cherish daily.”

Michael Arden, director of the “Parade” revival, has written about how important it was for him to go to Georgia and pay homage to Leo Frank. Arden traced the path Frank walked after he was kidnapped from his cell and led to the lynching site. In a statement, Arden writes: “It is incredibly important to me to have a real connection physically to the place and the people whose stories I’m helping to tell. By being [in Marietta, Georgia], I was asking for both permission and blessing from the spirit of this man whose personal story we were going to share with thousands of people.”

As the “Parade” story demonstrates, hatred for Jews endures. At a Shabbat morning service in October 2018, a century after Leo Frank’s trial, a self-proclaimed white supremacist and Jew-hater gunned down 11 congregants at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. It remains the deadliest attack of a Jewish community on American soil. The Friday following the Tree of Life shootings, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette headlined the first line of the Mourner’s Kaddish in its original Hebrew-Aramaic letters. Those letters, bold and thick and stalwart, could also be regarded as a Kaddish for Leo Frank.

For its part, the ADL found that antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2023 were at their highest since the organization began tracking such events in 1979. After Oct. 7, 2023, the ADL observed explicitly antisemitic and anti-Zionist rhetoric at 1,352 anti-Israel rallies across the United States. Leaving out all Israel-related incidents, antisemitic incidents still rose by 65% to 5,711 over the 3,457 non-Israel-related incidents recorded in 2022.

“Parade” ends with Max Chernin’s Leo Frank, wearing a noose around his neck, calmly reciting the Shema, a rallying cry and prayer traditionally said as a Jew’s last words. The scene demonstrates that Frank’s death is still all too fresh, reopening a wound each performance that has not healed. Further scandalizing Frank’s case, a projection on stage before the show highlights a line from the Georgia State Board of Pardons and Paroles, effectively tainting Frank’s legacy: “Without addressing guilt or innocence, and in recognition of the State’s failure to either protect Frank or bring his killers to justice, he was granted a posthumous pardon in 1986.”

Frank’s trial led to notable responses from both ends of the political spectrum, including significant advocacy against antisemitism, as well as the revival of the Ku Klux Klan after a long dormant period. The case continues to haunt Atlanta, the city’s Jewish community and American Jewry. Mary Phagan’s descendants believe Frank was guilty and opposed the 2019 move to reopen the case to exonerate him—the case is still in process. And Frank’s family and supporters continue to wait for posthumous justice in an atmosphere again weathered by antisemitism.

“Parade” will be at the Emerson Colonial Theatre from March 11-23. The Tuesday, March 11, performance is “Jewish Community Night” and will include a special post-show conversation with members of the cast, to be moderated by Laura Mandel, managing director of program strategy and impact at The Vilna Shul. Get 25% off tickets to the March 11 performance with the code “PARADE25” (valid through Feb. 25). Buy tickets.