YMMV / Parade (1998)

• Audience-Alienating Premise: Composer Jason Robert Brown has jokingly referred to it as "everyone's favourite lynching musical". While a financial flop on Broadway, it would go on to find its audience with multiple successful productions since.
• Award Snub: Lost Best Musical to Fosse. The show was almost certainly hurt by running for only about two months and closing before the ceremony.
• Awesome Music: Too many to count, Jason Robert Brown's talent really shines through in this score, but the most standout songs have to be "Old Red Hills Of Home" and "That's What He Said".
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Jim Conley is often considered a standout thanks to his dastardly charisma and leading two of the show's best numbers.
• Heartwarming Moments: Leo and Lucille start the musical as a married couple who are hitting a rough patch in the road. They care about each other, but it's clear in their first duet together "Leo At Work / What Am I Waiting For?" that it's a loveless marriage. By their final duet, "All the Wasted Time", Leo and Lucille have grown as both individuals and as a couple. Leo tells Lucille just how much he appreciates everything she did for him after taking her for granted and Lucille responds with joy at her faith in Leo's good character and innocence being rewarded.
  Leo: I will never understand what I did to deserve you
  Or how to be the man that I'm supposed to be
  I will never understand, if I live a thousand lifetimes, why you did the things you did for me
  Just look at you, how could I not be in love in you?
  What kind of fool could've taken you for granted for so long?
• Hilarious in Hindsight: The February 2015 Parade In Concert performance starred Jeremy Jordan and Laura Benanti as the Franks. Later that year, the two also starred in the first season of Supergirl (2015)... with Jordan as sidekick to Supergirl, whose mother and evil aunt were played by Benanti.
• Love to Hate: Jim Conley is a scoundrel who more than likely was the true murderer and shamelessly plays a major part in Leo's sentence. But damnit, the man can put on a show!
• Moment of Awesome: Lucille begins the musical as a quiet and somewhat subservient wife. Craig describes her as "mousy" at one point. She ends up harassed by several people, including Craig. When he tries to get a statement from her, Lucille responds with the song "You Don't Know This Man", talking about Leo's good character. That's when you get an idea of the inner fire and conviction Lucille has and it's satisfying to hear Lucille chew Craig out for smearing Leo's name and conducting a trial by media.

  Craig: You say he's a good man...but you're not saying he's innocent.

  Lucille: (with disgust and contempt) I have nothing more to say to you.

• Padding: "Big News" goes on too long for a song sung by a side character that amounts to little more than him saying "Nothing happens around here". Tellingly, it's since been cut out of the show.
• Retroactive Recognition: Mary Phagan in the Original Broadway Cast was played by a 14-year-old Christy Carlson Romano, who would go on to star in works for Disney like Even Stevens, Kim Possible, and Beauty and the Beast.
• Tear Jerker:
  • We are introduced to Leo through the song "How Can I Call This Home?" He is isolated from the rest of the Southerners (who are celebrating the Confederate Memorial Day on the streets outside) in his office at the factory. While Leo's arrogance and somewhat aloof personality are on display and he's created the situation he's in now by taking the job at the pencil factory and marrying a Southerner (Lucille)...it's really hard not to feel sorry for him. He's someone far from his home, isolated because he's a devoutly Jewish Northerner (in a state and era where memories of the Civil War are only 50 years old and with a prominent WASP population). Wouldn't you feel the same if you were in his shoes?
  • "It's Hard To Speak My Heart" is one of the most legendarily sad songs in all of musical theatre, as Leo desperately tries to convince the jury that a meek little man like him couldn't possibly commit such a heinous crime. It's made all the worse knowing that no matter what he says, he's doomed from the very start.
    Leo: I never touched that child. God, I never raised my hand! I stand before you now, incredibly afraid. I pray you understand.
  • "All the Wasted Time" is a beautiful love duet between Leo and Lucille, but to those who know what's coming, it's horribly tragic.
  • "The Old Red Hills of Home" can also bring tears, especially during the finale when you see the sympathetic characters (such as Frankie Epps) become members of the KKK.
  • Leo himself resigns himself to his fate before Lucille convinces Governor Slaton to look into his case.
  • "There is a Fountain/It Don't Make Sense to Me" has several of these, in particular Frankie's pained declaration that he’ll hunt down whomever killed Mary and avenge her death- doubly so when you realize he'll only succeed in getting the wrong guy.
    • The mourners remembering various things about Mary hammers home the fact that a 13 year old girl still ended up raped and murdered.