Emerson Colonial, Boston, MA. ***** out of 5. Can a musical be thoughtful, emotionally gutting, and wildly entertaining all at once? Parade is all those things and more. The sorrowful narrative of Leo Frank, wrongfully accused of murdering a child in 1913 Atlanta and lynched two years later, won Tonys for librettist Alfred Uhry and composer/lyricist Jason Robert Brown after an abortive first run, and now the triumphant Broadway revival from Tony honoree Michael Arden has landed in Boston for a two-week run that I can only call unmissable. Arden’s pageant-style staging brings out the story’s epic qualities, with projections of the actual settings and persons as constant reminders of grim historical accuracy. Brown’s score is a marvel, sampling “Dixie” and other vintage tunes against soaring choral work, with turn-of-the-century rhythms that set your toe a-tapping until you realize, in horror, exactly what is being celebrated. The exemplary touring cast is superbly headed by Max Chernin and Talia Suskauer as, respectively, the stiff-necked transplanted Jew alienated from his neighbors all along, and the frustrated wife kept on the sidelines of her husband’s ordeal. Since Arden is one of those directors who insist that even the smallest roles be acted full-out, there’s no end of excitement or visual interest, particularly under Heather Gilbert’s Expressionistic lighting effects. One of the villains, a particularly bloodthirsty Evangelist Christian, is played chillingly by Griffin Binnicker as a dead ringer for JD Vance. But the parallels to the xenophobia and bigotry of the present day need no such resemblances to ring uncomfortably true. (Photo by Joan Marcus.)