An Open Letter to Micaela Diamond
For young Micaela whose dream was to become a Jewish cantor until she heard JRB’s music.
–Micaela Diamond Bio, Parade, November 2022
Dear Micaela,
Hello again. My name’s Camille. On November 5, 2022, the dream of a lifetime came true: I saw Parade at the New York City Center. On April 29, 2023, I saw Parade on Broadway at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre. Yesterday, August 6, 2023, Parade has its final performance. And today, August 7, 2023, I wanted to take a moment to thank you and the creative team for that gift.
I’ve been saying “Ben Platt is my dream Leo Frank” since 2016, and he was, of course, excellent, demonstrating an incredible amount of restraint and carefully breaking our hearts at just the right time. But it’s not just Platt — every member of the Parade cast brings something essential to the table. Douglas Lyons may be one of the most exciting people working in theatre today; his written work perfectly mirrors the passion and energy he brings to his performance of “A Rumblin’ and a Rollin’” (he had to miss closing week due to COVID; Douglas, if you’re reading, please know I want to be you when I grow up.) Alex Joseph Grayson is terrifyingly charismatic as Jim Conley, one of the most challenging roles in the piece. But I was most wary about this “Micaela Diamond” person. Admittedly, a huge chunk of the worry was personal bias. Carolee Carmello is my favorite actress to ever grace a Broadway stage, and her performance as Lucille is a coveted, precious thing that I was wary of trusting another with. Thankfully Lucille is safe in your hands. Much like Carolee, you have a voice that doesn’t sound like anything I’ve ever heard, and when paired with Jason Robert Brown’s magnificent Americana score, an effect is created that needs to be heard to be believed. I also appreciate that Lucille’s persistence was ever-present in your performance — even in the early tumultuous stages of Act I, it’s clear that you are a woman with the power to change everything.
The Leo Frank case and the impact it had on American hate movements is a gruesome, sorrowful history which is simultaneously ever-forgotten and always relevant. When tackling Parade, the director has important choices to make about how much of the real world they want to pull into their piece, and how to fit it into a loaded media landscape. The sudden burst in popularity of the true crime genre has created a host of questions about how to honor victims, how to deliver information, the ethics of consent, legal protection, and whether or not it’s ethical to be talking about at all. Once again, I am pleased to say Michael Arden understood the assignment. You and Ben are Lucille and Leo, and the old photographs of the two of them watch you on the wall in a multilevel tactic of putting a face to a name. Instead of fabricated news articles designed for set dressing, copies of the genuine Jeffersonian articles Tom Watson wrote loom overhead. Every podcaster would do well to take this from Arden: these red clay ghosts are real. On the stage, we can grant them bodies again.
It’s impossible to describe in words how paradigm-shifting the presence of Parade has been in my life, so I will now attempt to do so with stories. I’ve done 2 separate projects on Leo Frank and Parade, one in high school and one in college. At a summer intensive, a choreographer called me “the Parade girl” because he overheard me talking about the show with a counselor and was impressed that I knew the exact number of orchestra pieces off the top of my head. Whenever I started to doubt the capacity of my own work or the future of the arts, I’d glance over to the OBC playbill sticker on my dorm room fridge, and I’d get back to work. I never ever thought that the day would come when I’d get to see Parade on a Broadway stage, and I certainly never thought it would be as superb as this. So it should come as no surprise that the person who asked the last question at the November 5th post-show Q&A was me. I leapt out of my skin when Jason Robert Brown called on me, I sobbed a lot, I somehow managed to ask a coherent question, and I said something along the lines of “I can’t tell you seeing this show on a Broadway stage means to me.” You smiled at me, and you said “I feel the same way.”
Thank you. Thank you for everything, but for that most of all.
From young Camille whose godfather drove her from Atlanta to Marietta to visit the site of Leo’s death.
