Slow Burn’s Dark Musical ‘Parade’ Is Among The Season’s Finest

Mikayla Cohen and Justin Albinder bond near the finale of Slow Burn’s Parade -(Photos by Larry Marano)

By Bill Hirschman

There is a unique moment in the finest musical theater when the lyrics, acting, direction, production values and, above all, the music meld into a power-driven force that almost physically lifts the audience out of their seats and illuminates their emotions.

In one of the most memorable theater seasons that South Florida has seen in several years, Slow Burn Theatre Company’s superlative Parade earns its place in that pantheon.

This dark, thought-provoking drama triumphs dealing with long-lasting social prejudice, nationalistic if misplaced pride, evolving relationships, race-based racism, anti-Semitism, hope in a closing tragedy and a half-dozen other interwoven themes.

Set in a 1913 Atlanta still mourning the culture-quashing loss a half-century earlier, the citizenry seeks its revenge when a Jew from New York is accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl who was working in the factory he managed.

The tightly-wound stiff-necked Leo French has always felt like and made to feel like an outsider even though he is married to a Jewish Atlantan who has eased into the broader culture.

Based on an actual event, he is tried in a kangaroo court featuring publicity-seeking liars including an African-American janitor who is first a suspect and then – enjoying his own brand of revenge – piling on the lies like a con man who loves deceiving the suckers.

The first act ends, no surprise, with a death sentence. But the drama follows how the governor reinvestigates the framing at the tireless propulsion for Leo’s ever-loyal long-suffering wife, Lucille. In the ensuing two-year crusade that seems on the cusp of success, the somewhat distanced couple discovers a truer, deeper love than they had ever known.

But it takes little imagination to know how this ends. Some of you will tear up, some outwardly cry, some feel a release as guilt finally washes over a few of the major players in the finale.

Justin Albinder

The quality of the book is no surprise since it was penned by Alfred Uhry, best known for Driving Miss Daisy. But the overwhelming music and lyrics excel all that Jason Robert Brown had done for The Bridges of Madison County (another Slow Burn piece) and amazingly Honeymoon in Vegas (another Slow Burn piece). While there are many scenes of dialogue alone, most of the show other than stunning stand-alone arias has musical scenes that flow into each other so seamlessly that the audience fortunately has no time to interrupt with applause

To know who at Slow Burn is primarily responsible for this, it’s virtually the entire honor roll listed in the Playbill. But start with company co-founder Patrick Fitzwater as director and choreographer.

His journey is perfectly paced like the closing loop of a noose. People are moved around and placed in a style that echoes Fitzwater’s movement-centric background. He sets in motion back and forth the crowd whether they are marching to maintain the lost dignity of their pre-war society or swirling as an angry mob anxious for revenge for the loss of that time.

Just as supremely skilled is music director and leader of the first-rate eight-piece pit band Travis Smith for a score that encompasses most period styles plus soaring solo ventings by the two Franks. He melds and molds Brown’s complex multi-strain score – both for the instrumentalists and the huge cast vocally.

In many large productions, there’s two or three actors who are not the equal of the others. Here, the entire 23-member cast deserves praise. Especially notable is how the ensemble creates the sense of an entire community surging with emotion, the faces of every last one grinning or scowling as the story evolves.

This backs into the two leads who simply soar. Justin Albinder creates a Leo appropriately shut down including closing out his wife and feeling unable to connect with his neighbors to the point of seeming aloof. But when the New York actor has a scene in the city’s false imagining of a smarmy vaudevillian-like hoofer, he nails that. More important is how his voice loosens and unwinds as Leo does finally see his wife’s worth and love.

Most memorable of all is Mikayla Cohen’s Lucille. A locally-raised but now New York actress, she caught audience’s ovations as the title character in Slow Burn’s recent Anastasia. Somehow, she acts and sings with glorious emotions, reined in and patient, then loyal and fraught with spirit. People will be talking about her work here for some time to come. Her voice is not that of a Rodgers & Hammerstein heroine but that needed for a 21^st Century musical.

Chaz Rose

The list is too long to single out everyone who deserves it, but Chaz Rose stuns as the Black suspect smart enough to exploit others’ stereotyping – and he sings with the resonating charcoal baritone-bass of Joe in Show Boat. Then note Joel Hunt as the teenager amplifying the terror, and Kevin Patrick Martin as the prosecutor.

Interestingly, some of the artists on both sides of the footlights are familiar, but the biographies in the playbill for most of them say this is their first Slow Burn production. Many of those don’t seem to have performed in the region at all, and some are based in New York City. Make of that what you will, but there is not a single talent that does not belong here.

Every technical element is A-list including Dan Donato’s sound design and balancing – a huge undertaking for anyone who knows how difficult a show like this is.

But one last mention is required for scenic designer Nikolas Serrano and lighting designer Eric Norbury. We won’t spoil this, but they created mouth-dropping piece of visual stagecraft that has to do with a tall nearly deflowered tree on stage ominously hanging over the entire evening. Yes, it’s what you expect, but there is a moment in the very last minute that is breathtaking in its creative genius.

Slow Burn did a solid job with Parade when it mounted the 1998 piece early in its existence in 2013, and the latest edition which won a Best Revival Tony in 2023. But this is something special.

Parade plays through Feb. 23 from Slow Burn Theatre Company, playing at the Amaturo Theater at the Broward Center for the Performing Arts, 201 Southwest 5th Avenue, Fort Lauderdale. 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Saturday; 1 p.m. Saturdays; 2 p.m. Sundays. Tickets $72.50 to $77. | Call (954) 462-0222, press 1 Monday–Friday, 10 a.m.–4 p.m. Buy at the box office two hours before a performance.