The Diary of Anne Frank
by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
as adapted by Wendy Kesselman
October 2011
Prince Music Theatre
An intimate and immersive staging of a deeply personal classic.
EgoPo's season-long Festival of Jewish Theater was produced at the former Prince Music Theater, and premiered with artistic director Lane Savadove's staging of Wendy Kesselman's The Diary of Anne Frank. Adapted from Goodrich and Hackett's Pulitzer-winning play, this deeply personal account of the Holocaust was given a fresh perspective by EgoPo. In an intimate, highly realistic, and immersive staging, the audience became co-inhabitants of the attic with the characters, who never leave the stage and dress and eat in real time.
Creative Team
Lane Savadove … Director
Matthew Miller … Set Designer & Production Manager
Natalia de la Torre … Costume Designer
Matt Sharp … Lighting Designer
Julian Guerra … Sound Designer
Glenn Odom … Dramaturgy
Marc Piscitello … Stage Manager
Michael Durkin … Assistant Director
Amanda Young … Assistant Dramaturg
Ian Paul Gozzone … Production Photos
Cast
Mary Lee Bednarek … Mrs. Van Daan
Mark Cairns … Mr. Kraler
K.O. DelMarcelle … Margot
Sara Yoko Howard … Anne Frank
Melanie Julian … Mrs. Frank
Rob Kahn … Otto Frank
Brendan Norton … Mr.Dussel
Johnny Smith … Peter
Cindy Spitko … Miep Giese
Russ Widdall … Mr. Van Daan
Andrew Clotworthy … Nazi #2
Rob Cutler … Nazi #1
Alan Holmes … Nazi #3
About Wendy Kesselman
Wendy Kesselman’s (b. 1940) plays include The Executioner’s Daughter; The Notebook; The Foggy Foggy Dew; The Last Bridge; I Love You, I Love You Not; Maggie Magalita; Merry-Go-Round; The Shell Collection; My Sister in This House, A Re-imagined Version (Deaf West Theatre); The Graduation of Grace; Spit; and her Tony-nominated adaptation of The Diary of Anne Frank. She also wrote the book, music and lyrics for The Juniper Tree, A Tragic Household Tale; A Tale of Two Cities; Becca and The Black Monk: A Chamber Musical, which was released on CD in 2015.
Among other honors, she has received the Susan Smith Blackburn Prize; the AT&T Onstage Award; The New England Major Award for Outstanding Creative Achievement in the American Theatre; the first annual Playbill Award; the Roger L. Stevens Award; the Jane Chambers Playwriting Award,; the Lecomte du Noüy Annual Award; Meet the Composer Grants; Guggenheim, McKnight and National Endowment for the Arts Fellowships; and a Writers Guild of America Award for her screen adaptation of John Knowles’s A Separate Peace. Her other screenplays include Sister My Sister (adapted from My Sister in This House) and I Love You, I Love You Not.