Opinion | Night After Night, I Perform on Broadway and Tell a Devastating Story | CPT PPP Coverage

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Working on this show night after night, I’m forced to confront another truth: Antisemites have never cared what kind of Jew you are, whether you attend synagogue or throw around Yiddish words. “Parade” speaks to historical antisemitism and mob violence, and it forces us to see how antisemitism and racism are inextricably linked, underscoring how the pursuit of justice fails in a broken judicial system. There is fear in acknowledging ourselves — Jewish people — as marginalized. But as Lucille learns through the course of the play, assimilating into the mainstream and hoping that will protect you isn’t the answer. If we refuse to embrace our inherent otherness — the parts that make us definitively Jewish Americans — we forget our common struggle with other marginalized people.

The evidence presented against Leo in court revolves mostly around Jewish stereotypes. We hear about Leo’s “fancy talk” and his “sweating from every pore,” and we hear testimonies that he had a pattern of inviting underage girls up to his office. Many of these stereotypes felt outlandish to me, but such conspiracies are at the very core of colloquial antisemitism. The idea of “fancy talk” is a dog whistle referring to the perception that Jewish run the world. The pedophile accusations are rooted in what is known as blood libel, a rumor dating back to the Middle Ages that Jewish murder Christian children, then use their blood for ritual purposes like baking matzo.

But in the play, it is not only Jewish who are maligned and abused. The only other person the police considered making a suspect in the murder was a Black man, the night watchman of the pencil factory. In the show, the prosecutor on the case has been instructed to deliver a quick conviction, and he casually states that hanging a Black man “ain’t enough this time. We gotta do better.” He knows that pinning the crime on a Jewish man will cast the outcome in a different light than pinning it on a Black man: He can knock the Jewish man down a peg, whereas the Black man’s social status has no farther to fall. In the layered storytelling of “Parade,” we can see how antisemitism and racism are integrally connected and how white people in power are incentivized to pit minorities against one another, using racism to provide convenient scapegoats and the illusion of law and order.

Minnie — Minola McKnight, played by the incomparable Danielle Lee Greaves — is the Franks’ Black housekeeper. She’s built a relationship with Lucille over years, becoming her confidante. But Minnie testifies against Leo, offering evidence we later learn was fabricated by the prosecution. It is a damning moment, both because it leads to Leo’s indictment and because it forces the audience to reckon with how the criminal justice system fails to protect all of those without power.

“Parade” was first produced on Broadway in 1998 and Michael Arden, who directed the 2023 production, understands that successfully reviving a musical requires purposeful reinvention. Throughout the process, he has led with beautiful intention around making those who were underrepresented in 1913 (or 2023) a stronger and more active presence. Among my favorite moments in the show is one of the last: Minnie and Lucille, reconciled, center stage, singing softly under a parasol together. A Black woman and a Jewish woman, undone by the same system, having a picnic.