A somber 'Parade'

Jenny Fellner is taking a break from the Broadway run of “Wicked” to portray Lucille Frank in “Parade” at Ford’s Theatre opposite Tony nominee Euan Morton as her husband, Leo Frank. Her role in the Tony-winning musical based on the 1913 trial of Jewish factory manager Leo Frank is in stark contrast to her turn as the make-believe Nessarose, the Wicked Witch of the East. Convicted of raping and murdering a 13-year-old employee, Frank was given life imprisonment by the governor of Georgia, but during his transfer to a prison in Milledgeville, a lynching party kidnapped and hanged him. The historic event is revisited in the music and lyrics of Jason Robert Brown and the book by Alfred Uhry, whose great-uncle owned the factory.