Hey Jesse Eisenberg, Jason Robert Brown Is Still Waiting for You to Star in Parade

When appearing on the September 18 episode of Broadway.com’s live Facebook talk show #LiveatFive, Tony-winning songsmith Jason Robert Brown told co-host Paul Wontorek that Jesse Eisenberg was once tapped to play Leo Frank in a revival of his first Broadway success, 1998’s Parade.

“He actually came over to my apartment once and sang through the entire score,” Brown said. “The entirety of our relationship basically consists of that day and a couple of emails. Our hope was that this was going to lead to the Jesse production of Parade that just hasn’t happened…yet.”

Ah, all the wasted time since that day at the piano… Could we hope that, as Leo Frank himself might say, this is not over yet? “It is still my hope that before he loses all his teeth and begins to use a walker, he would say, ‘You know what? To hell with this movie stuff. I want Ben Brantley to dismiss my talents! That’s what I really want!”

A film star best known for his Oscar-nominated turn in The Social Network, Eisenberg only has one Broadway credit, appearing as a teen in Summer and Smoke in 1993. However, he is a regular on the off-Broadway theater scene as both playwright and actor. He starred in his plays Asuncion (2011), The Revisionist (2013) and The Spoils (2015) and his latest comedy Yea, Sister! will premiere at The New Group in April 2019. He has not yet starred in a musical on the New York stage.

The 1998 musical about the trial of Leo Frank, a Jewish man convicted of murdering a 13-year-old girl in 1913, is written by Brown and librettist Alfred Uhry (who both won Tony Awards for their work) and originally starred Brent Carver as Frank and Carolee Carmello as his wife Lucille. It regularly attracts great performers to its leading roles: a 2007 London premiere at the Donmar Warehouse starred Bertie Carvel (Matilda) and Lara Pulver, a 2009 Los Angeles staging starred T.R. Knight and Pulver and Jeremy Jordan and Laura Benanti performed it in concert at Avery Fisher Hall in 2015.

Watch Jason Robert Brown on #LiveatFive below and be sure to tune in every day for a new episode on Broadway’s Facebook page.