It’s pretty unusual to hear a prerecorded curtain announcement from a sitting U.S. senator at a touring musical. But in the case of Parade , now making a short (and absolutely not to be missed if you can help it) stop at the CIBC Theatre with Broadway in Chicago, it also feels appropriate.

The senator in question is Raphael Warnock of Georgia, and the musical deals with a gross miscarriage of justice in the state over 100 years ago. The Black senator (and man of the cloth) wasn’t just reminding us to turn off our cell phones and not take photographs during the show; his voice itself was a reminder of how things have—and haven’t—changed in both Georgia and the U.S. since Leo Frank was lynched in 1915.

Anti-Semitism, racism, child labor, toxic “Lost Cause” mythologizing, corrupt official

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