WINDSOR – The Cirillo Summer Theatre, a 43-year-old youth theatre sponsored by Windsor Recreation & Leisure Services will present  Alfred Uhry’s and Jason Robert Brown’s Tony awarding winning musical, “Parade” this summer.
“Parade” centers around the true story of Leo Frank, a Brooklyn-raised Jew living in Atlanta, Ga. in 1913, who is put on trial for the murder of 13-year-old Mary Phagan, a factory worker under his employ.   Already guilty in the eyes of everyone around him, a sensationalist publisher and a janitor’s false testimony seal Leo’s fate.  His only defenders are a governor with a conscience, and, eventually, his assimilated Southern wife who finds the strength and love to become his greatest champion.  The case, perhaps the largest example of anti-Semitism in the United States, led to the founding of the Anti-Defamation League by the Independent Order of B’nai B’rith, of which Frank was a member.
Students and young adults, ages 14 – 24, are invited to audition for the August production by contacting the group’s director, Susan J. Vinick, at suejvin@cox.net.  Appointments are being scheduled now for auditions in late May and early June.  For more information visit www.freewebs.com/cirillosummertheatre.

Note: “The People v Leo Frank,” a documentary on the same topic, will have its Connecticut premiere at the Mandell JCC Hartford Jewish Film Festival on Sunday, April 3, 7 p.m.  For more information  call (860) 236-4571 or (860) 231-6316.