Staff Reports
The Kennedy Center’s recent staging of the Tony Award-winning musical Parade has stirred discussion in Washington, as audiences turned out in strong numbers for the production. The show recounts the infamous case of Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent who was falsely accused of murdering a young girl in 1913 Atlanta, only to be lynched by a mob after his death sentence was commuted. While progressives hailed the show as a bold cultural statement, the real story is less about identity politics and more about audiences responding to powerful storytelling in an age when truth and history are often manipulated for political ends.
The enthusiastic turnout undermined the narrative pushed by some that the play would flop due to its supposedly “niche” subject matter. Instead, reports note that the Kennedy Center played to mostly full houses. This success flies in the face of the Left’s constant framing of Middle America as uninterested in cultural depth unless it is packaged with progressive propaganda. The reality is that audiences aren’t rejecting art, they’re rejecting lectures dressed up as art. When a production simply delivers strong craftsmanship, it proves people will come—without the need for ideological sugarcoating.
There is, however, an irony here. For decades, liberal elites have used the performing arts as a pulpit for their worldview, shutting out dissent and ensuring their narratives received the biggest spotlight. But the embrace of Parade shows audiences are capable of engaging with meaningful, difficult history without the heavy-handed progressive filter. It suggests that when the culture industry simply allows storytelling to breathe—rather than forcing modern talking points into every script—people of all backgrounds will respond. The arts thrive when they are honest, not when they serve as mouthpieces for elitist agendas.
What makes Parade so relevant today is its exploration of how hysteria and media bias can corrupt the truth. The case of Leo Frank reminds us that mob mentality and dishonest reporting have devastating consequences. It is impossible not to see the parallel with modern times, where the media routinely substitutes narrative for facts, targeting individuals or groups based on political expediency. Just as Frank was convicted less by evidence than by rumor and social fervor, today’s cancel culture thrives off innuendo and manipulation, often destroying lives before the facts are fully known.
As the curtains close on Parade’s run at the Kennedy Center, the message is clear: art should provoke reflection, not indoctrination. The lesson of Leo Frank’s tragic story is not owned by any political camp, but it serves as a timeless warning about what happens when truth is sacrificed for hysteria and ideology. If there’s anything the cultural establishment should learn from the show’s reception, it’s that Americans are still hungry for art that respects their intelligence and reminds them of universal truths, rather than pandering to the agenda of the cultural Left.
