On Jason Robert Brown’s PARADE with Broadway’s (the University of Michigan School of Music Theatre and Dance’s) Frannie Walton.
I recently sat down (over text) with my colleague Frannie Walton, who was notoriously born and raised in the state of Georgia; We discussed the opening number of Jason Robert Brown’s hit musical PARADE (which dramatizes via scene and song the events that led to the lynching of Leo Frank) titled “the old red hills of home.” I took a guerilla approach to the interview, meaning she had no idea she was on the record, in order to get genuine responses from her. Our conversation went as follows.
Nini: Does Georgia have red hills?
Frannie: Yes Linda
Autocorrect.
Kinda.
Nini: What are the red hills like
Very red?
Frannie: Not really.
More rust.
Nini: Are they called the Red
Hills… Or?
Frannie: No.
Nini: Are they all over?
Frannie: No.
Its just that especially
in north Georgia we have a
lot of red clay and
red dirt so the mountains
and stuff are red.
Nini: Okay Well
Why did Jason Robert Brown
write that opening number
then?
Frannie: Because he’s a freak.
Nini: “We gave our lives for the
old hills of Georgia, the
old red hills of home” ????
Frannie: Like yeah, there’s red
Georgia clay so some hills
are red.
Nini: But he was exaggerating a
little bit like
Georgia hills arent
characteristically red
for the most part…
Frannie: No theyre not.
Nini: Does it bother you that he
wrote that?
Frannie: Not really.
I feel like he could
appropriate my culture
worse.
Nini: Okay.
Do you feel like if you hated
JRB for another reason you
would add this on?
Frannie: Yes.
Nini: Like “Oh and by the way, the
hills arent red
motherfucker.”
Frannie: Is this an interview for
Class Clowns?
