Following the big Broadway Candide revival in April 1997, Harold Prince will get down to work on a new American musical, Parade, that will tour the U.S. in 1998 and open in fall 1998 on Broadway.

Speaking at the March 27 press conference for Candide, Prince said he'll stage the musical with book by Pulitzer-winner Alfred Uhry (Driving Miss Daisy, Last Night of Ballyhoo); music and lyrics by 26-year-old Jason Robert Brown.

Prince said the musical will be produced by Livent Inc. (Ragtime, Show Boat), but will not open in Livent's base, Toronto. He said the tour will open in another unspecified city. Livent's Garth Drabinsky has mentioned the project among several he is developing.

Prince told Playbill On-Line the musical is based on the true story of Leo and Lucille Frank whose boring marriage gets an unexpected rebirth when Leo is accused of raping and killing one of the girls working in his Atlanta factory, in 1913. Clapped in prison, the wimpy Leo is forced to get some backbone. "He starts a coward and becomes a hero," Prince said. His chilly, passive wife "becomes a dynamic woman," he said.

Prince said he was intrigued by the show's sociological setting as well. He incident, taking place in a factory, becomes a lightning rod for feelings among Atlantans that Northern industrialization was forced on the city after the Civil War. "The story just seemed like a metaphor for what was happening there at that time," he said. Prince said he was introduced to Brown by his daughter, actress Daisy Prince, who appeared in one of his earlier projects.