Interview: Naomi Rose-Mock of PARADE at Arts@Faith

A Director’s Take on “Parade”: “We’re going to live this show”

Naomi Rose-Mock has extensive directing credits to her name in Tallahassee, Fla., but the in the round production of “Parade” at Arts@Faith from Sept. 19, 2024, through Oct. 5, 2024, has been her first foray into a true story. 

For 105 people per night over the course of eight performances, Rose-Mock brought to life Alfred Uhry’s book and Jason Robert Brown’s lyrics about Leo Frank, a Jewish factory superintendent who was tried, convicted and lynched after being accused of murdering Mary Phagan, a 13-year-old who had worked at the factory. 

Rose-Mock shares more about this production, and why it mattered so much to her, the cast and the crew as they shared the story’s message with Tallahassee and the surrounding region. 

Answers have been lightly edited for clarity.  

Q: How did you end up producing “Parade” in Tallahassee at this time?

A: I saw “Parade” in its original run in the late 90s. I loved the music. It became part of my audition book; I’ve had students use it in their auditions. 

Peter Pursino, our producer and director of the Arts@Faith program, saw the limited-run Broadway revival in 2023 and suggested we do it here in Tallahassee, in an immersive setting.  

That’s how we ended up producing the show in the round, to just over 100 people per performance. It brought a greater immediacy to the story.

There aren’t many true stories turned into musicals, which people see as frivolous in some ways, but music transcends our spoken language. It reaches people on a different level than the spoken word typically does.

Q: What are some of the “nuts and bolts” about your approach to this production?

A: Our seven-week process was longer than typical for me, but I wanted to give people some time off rather than a six-days-a-week schedule so they would have mental space to process the story’s heavy emotional toll.  

Working to make on-set transitions seamless is a challenge when performing in the round, as there’s nowhere for crew members to hide. Our crew and stage manager (Dae Trotman) rose to that occasion.

There are no microphones; the lack of amplification is an asset in this show as it adds to the immersive experience and connects audience members more directly with the actors

We placed historical clippings on the walls of the venue detailing the events surrounding Leo Frank’s case. We originally planned to do a slide show during intermission, but decided to create an atmosphere evoking a museum. 

Q: How did you handle the story’s gravity in your directing?

A: It was essential to convey to the cast from the first moment that they were portraying people. No one in this show is a “character.” I told them, “We’re not going to act this show. We’re going to live this show.” We’re going to focus on telling the story of these people and being authentic. 

Engaging a dramaturg (Daniel Gray) to complete dossiers on each character was a key to helping each actor bring out the authenticity of the person they were playing. 

Almost everyone in this cast is college-age or older, but I wanted Mary Phagan (Jenna Sokolow) to be a real teenager. The fact that the actress playing Mary is a little bit younger than everyone else makes it that much more poignant.

Q: The choreography of the “The Factory Girls/Come Up to My Office” number is a turning point in the production. How did you handle that?

A: Our choreographer, Taylor Whittle, did a masterful job with this number. That is a really hard number to stage, because you're having to show a transformative moment in a way that is very abstract, yet still compelling. It was important to me that Leo Frank not make physical contact with the girls at any point. Whittle choreographed it so it looks like he’s sort of puppet mastering them, and they’re reacting as if it’s in their memory.  

Q: The venue is a multi-purpose space, not a full-time theater. How did you work with the lighting director to enhance the effects? 

A: Our lighting designer (Katie Redd) is very aware of the space that she's working in, and that space specifically offers us some really cool projection-like effects with shadows on the wall. It’s most noticeable in the “The Factory Girls/Come Up to My Office” number where you look up and see a sort of big bad wolf imagery surrounding you.  

Q. This show is performed in North Florida. Some of the places mentioned in the show are not all that far away, so there are some shared cultural aspects between the areas mentioned. What did it mean to do the show in the Deep South? 

In this show, the speech patterns and other elements probably made people feel that they had connections to the archetypes represented, both good and bad. I think that makes the story have so much resonance. 

The title, “Parade,” deals with the “tradition vs. change” narrative.The pageantry of the parade is a parallel to the courtroom in this show. All involved in that scene conspire to create a narrative that was invented by them to excise this foreign entity from their community.

Q: You had to reschedule multiple shows after Hurricane Helene came ashore east of Tallahassee and proceeded to cause damage throughout the region. What did that entail?

A: There’s a cast of 30, with approximately 55 people involved in the show altogether. Moving a show as we did is never easy. Trying to reorganize 55 people's schedules was difficult, but we managed it. We had to be a little creative with the cast and add some new crew members, but in general the cast is so passionate about the story that most of them who could at all move things did so. We all love this show and consider it a privilege, so it was important to make it work.

Q: What are some of your final takeaways?

A: I feel really fortunate to have directed this show. It doesn’t get done very often, and the music is incredibly difficult, but we live in a town with great music education and resources.   

It’s an important time to do “Parade.” We're so fractured as a society right now. Society was divided in 1913-15 in a different way, but the fracture has reopened, and this show reminds us of the fragility of our humanity.

I could watch this cast do this show for the rest of my life. I always learn something from every show I direct. But this one feels special and eerily prescient..  

When I saw the show in the late 90s, it felt like a period piece. However, it feels different in 2024. When we rehearsed, the cast members were in regular clothes rather than costumes. We all felt that if we hadn’t worn costumes in the actual production to show that it was a different time, we wouldn’t realize it was a different time.  

The shows that I enjoy the most are always the ones that I think about afterward. You want to learn more about this show's background after you watch it. The music gets stuck in your head, but the show itself, and the fact that it's based on real life, just percolates in your brain. You don’t walk out and say, “OK, let’s just grab coffee.” You think.

And that, to me, is theater’s job.

Photo credits: Casey Littlefield 

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