Theater: The Case Against Leo

An infamous lynching becomes a somber musical

In April 1913 the body of Mary Phagan, 13, strangled to death, was found in the basement of the Atlanta pencil factory where she worked. Leo Frank, the factory's manager, was arrested for the crime and, despite his protestations of innocence, convicted of murder and sentenced to death. Two years later, after his sentence had been commuted to life imprisonment by the Governor of Georgia, Frank was taken from his prison cell by persons unknown and lynched. Because Frank was Jewish, his case became a nationwide cause celebre for Jewish groups and political figures crusading against anti-Semitism.

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