Ben Platt and the producers of the Broadway revival of the 1998 musical "Parade" condemned antisemitic protests that took place outside the musical's first preview performance at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre in New York City.
"Parade" follows the true story of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory manager who was convicted of raping and murdering a 13-year-old employee named Mary Phagan in 1913. Today, the consensus is that he was wrongly convicted, but at the time, amid rising antisemitic tensions across Georgia, Frank was kidnapped from prison in 1915 and lynched in Phagan's hometown. The public act of violence was spurred by Georgia governor commuting Frank's death sentence to life in prison. Frank's highly publicized case continues to be of public interest today, after the Fulton County District Attorney in Georgia reopened the investigation in 2019 to prove his innocence.
