See Ben Platt in photos from Broadway Parade tech rehearsals

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Before the parade passes by...

Parade is returning to Broadway, the first time the Tony-winning musical has been revived on the Great White Way since it premiered in 1998. The acclaimed New York City Center production, starring Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond, kicks off its Broadway previews on Tuesday, Feb. 21 ahead of its March 16 opening. Directed by Michael Arden (Spring Awakening), the production breathes new life into composer Jason Robert Brown's masterpiece in this limited engagement.

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Meet the Franks

Director Michael Arden visits with stars Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond in Platt's dressing room at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Platt and Diamond star as Leo and Lucille Frank, the couple at the heart of the play's legal drama. When Leo is accused of raping and murdering 13-year-old Mary Phagan, his and his wife's lives are thrown into turmoil as a wave of anti-semitism sweeps through their small Southern town.

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Somethin' ain't right

Paul Alexander Nolan studies his lines backstage. Nolan features as Parade's villain, Hugh Dorsey, the ambitious and corrupt prosecutor who singles out Leo Frank as a scapegoat.

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This is not over yet

Diamond visits Platt in his dressing room. Parade seems particularly timely in its tale of antisemitism and the horrors of lynching and vigilante justice. It marked composer Jason Robert Brown's first Broadway musical, following the success of off-Broadway song cycle Songs For a New World. Brown won his first Tony Award for Best Score for Parade.

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It's hard to speak my heart

Platt makes his first return to Broadway since his Tony-winning turn as conflicted high school student Evan Hansen in Dear Evan Hansen. The actor changes gears here, starring as the emotionally isolated Leo Frank, a Jewish man living in the red hills of Georgia and managing a pencil factory.

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Real big news

Jay Armstrong Johnson features as Britt Craig, who sings of Mary Phagan's rape and murder, seeing it as a career-making story for him as a reporter.

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Waiting in the wings

Platt waits to make his entrance as Leo Frank, a middle-class factory manager whose outsider status as a Yankee and a practicing Jewish man makes him an easy scapegoat.

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You don't know this man

Parade features as cast of 33, including Courtnee Carter as Angela and Douglas Lyons as Riley, two African-American domestics who wonder how the case would've been perceived if Leo was Black.

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All the wasted time

At 23, Ben Platt was the youngest actor ever to win a Tony for Best Actor in a Musical with Dear Evan Hansen. Since he wrapped up his time in the show, he pivoted to film and television, appearing in The Politician, The People We Hate At the Wedding, and the film adaptation of Dear Evan Hansen. He also released the album Reverie.

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Feel the rain fall

Alex Joseph Grayson stars as Jim Conley, the janitor at Leo Frank's factory and the key witness against him in the trial. Grayson earned raves for his performance in the City Center production, which he reprises here.

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People of Atlanta

Tony nominated for the 2005 revival of Sweeney Todd, Manoel Felciano returns to Broadway as Tom Watson, a rabidly anti-semitic writer whose invectives in extremist right-wing paper The Jeffersonian help build a furor against Leo Frank.

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Newt Lee's testimony

Eddie Cooper is Newt Lee, a Black man who is also a scapegoat and suspect in the rape and murder of Mary Phagan.

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The old red hills of home

The ensemble of Parade rehearses a musical number ahead of their Feb. 21 previews.

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That's what he said

A former convicted felon, Jim Conley (Alex Joseph Grayson) is cajoled into testifying against Leo by ambitious prosecutor Hugh Dorsey.

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Leo and Lucille at work

Ben Platt and Micaela Diamond share a lighthearted moment in rehearsal, a necessary laugh amidst the tragedy of the story.

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The Picture Show

Jake Pedersen waits in the wings. He plays Frankie Epps, a young boy who flirts with Mary Phagan. When her body is found, he vows revenge upon her killer.

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How can I call this home?

Platt takes direction in between numbers during rehearsal. Director Michael Arden has been with Parade since he directed a workshop production for Roundabout Theatre Company in 2018. It is his spare approach to the show and use of real photographs and projections from the trial that add a somber authenticity to the proceedings.

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What am I waiting for?

Ben Platt plays Leo Frank over the course of several years, from his accusation and trial in 1913 to an appeal in 1915.

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Do it alone

As Lucille Frank, Micaela Diamond must contend with a lonely marriage and her husband's court trial. Here, she stands in front of projections by Sven Ortel, which set the scene in 1900s Atlanta and provide historical context around the true story of Leo and Lucille Frank.

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It goes on and on

As Britt Craig, Jay Armstrong Johnson vilifies Leo Frank to further his own reporting career.

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You don't know this man

Backstage, Micaela Diamond holds Lucille's purse, which belongs to Tony Award winning costume designer Susan Hilferty as her personal purse. She loaned it to the production and Diamond.

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The dream of Atlanta

Micaela Diamond makes her way backstage. Diamond gets to shine as Lucille, having previously played the youngest version of Cher from the ages of 7 to 19, Babe, in musical The Cher Show.

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A Diamond in the rough

Diamond has been with this revival of Parade since its first workshop with Roundabout Theatre Company back in 2018.

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Pretty music

It is the corrupt officials of Marietta, Georgia that prove to be Leo Frank's greatest enemies, particularly Paul Alexander Nolan as prosecutor Hugh Dorsey (right). Though it's Governor Slaton (Tony nominee Sean Allan Krill), who reopens Leo's case after hearing the pleas of the Franks.

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