ELOC are set to stage Parade, a TONY Award-winning drama exploring prejudice, faith and love at the Epsom Playhouse on April 21
With a script from acclaimed playwright Alfred Uhry, whose play Driving Miss Daisy won the Pulitzer Prize for drama before being adapted into an Oscar-winning movie, Parade is powerful story of love enduring in the face of intolerance and injustice.
Its setting is America, 1913, where a Brooklyn-raised Jew faces mob justice after he is accused of the rape and murder of a young girl. His only defenders are his wife, and a governor with a conscience. The drama unfolds to a backdrop of haunting music scored by Jason Robert Brown, perhaps most famous for his musical Songs for a New World.
James Fortune and Dennis Hooker are the director and musical director, respectively, having previously worked together on the award-winning ELOC production of Titanic the Musical.
James spent a full year researching the true story behind the characters involved in the show. “Nearly every character on that stage actually lived. We know where they were born, how they lived their lives, what their favourite meal was…” This in-depth research allows him to ensure that the period “rings true, which in turn means powerful theatre”.
Chairman Crispian Shepley can’t wait. He says it’s “a real privilege” to present these true events more than a century on, in a musical that he hopes will be “powerful yet accessible: modern, yet tuneful and lyrical with a compelling love story.”
Find out more about ELOC on their website, or view Parade on our What's On Calendar