Neo-Nazis harass Broadway theater guests

NEW YORK - It was the first preview performance of the Broadway revival of the musical Parade.

The show follows the real-life story of Leo Frank, a Jewish man who was killed by a Lynch mob in Georgia in 1915 after he was wrongly convicted of murder.

Frank is buried at Mount Carmel Cemetery in Queens.

Frank’s case led to the formation of the Anti-Defamation League or ADL.

But just hours before the cast took their first bows on stage, a group of about half a dozen neo-Nazi sympathizers gathered outside the Bernard Jacobs Theater in Manhattan to harass patrons waiting to see the show.

One was even passing out flyers with Nazi "SS" lightning bolt symbols.

"I mean, I was disgusted," said Etzion Neuer, ADL’s senior deputy director for New York and New Jersey. "There's a bizarre irony here that you have a group of anti-Semitic extremists in 2023 protesting a play about the true story of a lynching of an innocent Jewish man by an anti-Semitic mob."

Frank is played by actor Ben Platt in the musical.  He is also Jewish.

Platt took to his Instagram account to address the incident.

"It was definitely very ugly and scary, but it’s a wonderful reminder of why we are telling this story and of how powerful art and theatre can be," Platt said. "It made me feel extra grateful to be able to be able to tell this story and carry on this legacy of Leo."