Broadway's ‘Parade’ star Ben Platt speaks out on antisemitic protests
Ben Platt, who plays Leo Frank in a Broadway show about Frank's wrongful murder conviction and lynching, spoke out against a neo-nazi protest against the play.
Broadway actor and Tony award winner Ben Platt took to social media to speak out against the antisemitic protest against Parade, the new show he stars in about the 1915 lynching of a Jewish man in Georgia.
“There were some neo-nazi protestors from a really disgusting group… bothering some of our patrons on the way in and saying antisemitic things about Leo Frank, who the show is about,” explained Platt at the beginning of his video statement.
“It was definitely very ugly and scary, but [also] a wonderful reminder of why we’re telling this particular story,” Platt declared. ”It just made me feel extra, extra grateful to be the one that gets to tell this particular story and to carry on this legacy of Leo.”View this post on Instagram
What is “Parade” about?
Platt stars as Leo Frank, the Jewish manager of an Atlanta pencil factory who was accused of murdering a girl whose body was found there in 1913. Despite little evidence, Frank was found guilty of killing Mary Phagan, who had worked at the factory and was sentenced to death.
In 1915, when Frank’s sentence was commuted to life in prison, he was kidnapped by an armed mob and lynched – a case that inspired the creation of the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish civil rights group whose activities include monitoring neo-Nazi activity.
“I just wanted the button on the evening, at least for me, personally to be to celebrate what a beautiful experience (the play) is,” he said. “Not the really ugly actions of a few people who are spreading evil.”
Neo-nazi protest against "Parade"
The protesters, who identified with the National Socialist Movement – a neo-Nazi group headquartered in Florida that has a swastika in its logo – carried a poster that accused Frank of being a pedophile, according to videos shared from the incident.
That allegation is frequently made by neo-Nazis who reject the consensus that Frank was innocent of the crime. They see the advocacy on his behalf as evidence of Jewish control of the media, a longstanding antisemitic trope.
The Parade protesters also distributed antisemitic literature and criticized the ADL, according to videos shared on social media from the scene. One video shared on Twitter suggested that at least some people present jeered the neo-Nazis. The protesters held a white banner with red capital letters reading “Leo frankly was a pedo.”
Philissa Cramer/JTA contributed to this report.
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