‘A couple of times people walked out’: how an Anne Frank musical became the hottest theater ticket of the year

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It’s hard to not invoke the word “woke” erstwhile discussing Slam Frank, the 2025 philharmonic that reimagines Anne Frank arsenic a pansexual Latina. Controversial adjacent earlier its archetypal performance, it giddily satirizes individuality authorities done its show-within-a-show structure, successful which a progressive theatre institution attempts to modernize the Holocaust victim’s communicative by paralleling it to the struggles faced by marginalized radical today. Here, the parent of “Anita” is Black, her begetter is neurodivergent and, portion hiding successful Amsterdam, they are precise overmuch immigrants.

Creator Andrew Fox recognizes “a temptation to categorize it arsenic anti-woke art”, but points readily astatine the show’s fans and detractors, who autumn crossed each conceivable enactment line, and cautions against one-note interpretations. “I deliberation the portion is conscionable trying to grapple with the past 15 years of taste and intelligence upheaval and get immoderate drama retired of it.”

Following past year’s sold-out tally astatine the Asylum NYC drama nine (now retroactively referred to arsenic a workshop), it volition premiere off-Broadway due astatine the Orpheum theatre connected 4 October.

The thought started online, if you tin judge it, erstwhile Fox stumbled crossed a 2022 tweet dissecting Frank’s alleged achromatic privilege. The composer-lyricist got to enactment connected a hip-hop philharmonic inspired by that absurd debate, and reconnected with an aged schoolhouse friend, writer Joel Sinensky, who suggested they instrumentality the backstage concept. (Before then, Fox says, “it was person to Oleanna than to Waiting for Guffman.”)

“We person galore things that we disagree on, but the happening that we were ever precise agreed connected is this feeling that we were bushed of didactic theater,” Sinensky says. “A batch of the enactment that’s been made commercially successful the past decennary has been precise nonstop astir what you’re expected to instrumentality distant from it, and we wanted to constitute thing that was a absorption to that – that was astir that.”

So portion the existent sociopolitical infinitesimal (post-#MeToo, post-Covid, post-“Woke 1.0”) is surely a people successful the musical’s enactment of fire, its signifier lampoons the creation that has resulted from that zeitgeist. Hamilton is simply a large inspiration – if that’s the connection – with Slam Frank’s logo riffing connected the blockbuster bio-musical’s own, and its philharmonic sensibility imitates its verbose, sloganeering rap.

What it doesn’t get from Hamilton, purposefully, is simply a wide ideology. The production’s societal media, managed by Fox, has been a masterclass successful subterfuge and trolling. (“Fasting is Fatphobic,” reads an Instagram station shared connected Yom Kippur.) Fox, who is Jewish, says 1 of their guiding intentions was to ne'er convey “a circumstantial viewpoint oregon message”.

“We committed beauteous aboriginal to making thing that, anytime we consciousness similar we’re making 1 constituent and it’s starting to consciousness similar a lecture, we plaything successful different direction,” helium says. “It lets america absorption connected making the portion arsenic effectual arsenic imaginable astatine getting reactions, getting laughs, getting shock.”

Sinensky says helium revels successful Reddit reviews of the show, which alternately statement him and Fox arsenic pro-Zionist, antisemitic, extremist right- and leftwing: “That, to me, is 1 of the champion indicators that we succeeded – that radical tin spot it and emotion it oregon get aggravated for antithetic reasons.”

Online chatter aside, reviews person been mostly positive. The show’s publicist (understandably) makes the astir retired of an X post by Ben Brantley, the erstwhile New York Times theatre critic, arguing that it “may beryllium the astir important caller amusement around”. Its director, Sam LaFrage, recalls a visit from Patti LuPone, who helium says came backstage astatine Asylum NYC to notation however moved she’d been.

“I get truly excited by thing that makes maine consciousness similar creation is back,” says LaFrage. “Like, we can bash plays that marque radical uncomfortable, and accidental the things that person been near unsaid due to the fact that we’ve been disquieted astir getting canceled, you know? The play wrong the play is simply a large instrumentality to workout that right, to beryllium artists. Slam Frank is astir what’s happened to art.”

Like Fox and Sinensky, LaFrage feels the philharmonic is simply a mode to poke amusive astatine his ain “woke” past, thing helium thinks besides legitimizes the honesty of its satirical intent. “I utilized to bash resistance queen household theatre downtown,” helium says with a premix of pridefulness and chagrin.

“When Trump got elected, evidently that was awful, but I fto woke get the champion of me,” says Walker Stovall, who plays a quality modeled aft the camera operators successful big-budget Jamie Lloyd productions. Like LaFrage, helium speaks with an earnest tongue-in-cheek. “You should beryllium captious astir the mode you deliberation and astir what you’re taught, but I deliberation erstwhile I was letting it get successful the mode of connecting with different radical is erstwhile it each went bad.”

Fox echoes the sentiment that respectability authorities person served an other effect. Many of the characters successful Slam Frank often get bogged down successful well-meaning, hardly intelligible jargon. (At 1 point, idiosyncratic wonders “through what assemblage of counter-hegemonic labour shall the scaffolding of our interlocking systems of oppression beryllium rendered obsolete?”)

“It’s a precise unusual mode of speaking and penning that benignant of detaches radical from their ain thoughts,” helium says. “Part of what our amusement tries to bash is correspond that acquisition of being portion of a civilization that is becoming little quality and much abstract, and however comic oregon horrifying that tin be.”

Ironically, the philharmonic was antecedently ejected from a highbrow store hosted by BMI, the euphony licensing organization, for that un-abstracted bravado. According to Fox, “what got it kicked retired was the non-binary coming retired song, and arsenic acold arsenic I know, determination wasn’t a azygous non-binary idiosyncratic successful that room. Then the adjacent year, a clump of caller non-binary radical joined the store and that was their favourite opus successful the show.”

Olivia Bernábe, the non-binary histrion who plays Anita, says they find the fig “hysterical”. They archetypal learned of the amusement done Fox’s TikTok videos, and thought it was “just an aggravated commit-to-the-bit, but with truly bully music”.

“I cognize that determination are radical who bash get offended,” says Bernábe. “There person been a mates of times wherever radical person walked out; I don’t cognize if they hide that it’s satire, oregon it could beryllium that everyone has a antithetic threshold for it. We are teasing, but not really making amusive of the identity. What the amusement plays with is the thought of your individuality equaling your ethics, due to the fact that that’s conscionable not true.”

There’s plentifulness of button-pushing atop that righteous jestering: the entranceway to the Orpheum’s auditorium, for example, has been made to look similar the bookcase which led to the Frank family’s hideout, with a neon motion welcoming visitors to “The Attic”. But Fox thinks “the civilization was acceptable to determination successful this direction” of irreverence, paraphrasing a punctuation from Rick Rubin, the celebrated grounds producer, “that ideas are successful the aerial and that somebody’s gonna get them. If you don’t spell guardant with it, that thought doesn’t dice with you.”

“There are galore things successful the civilization reflective of things that Slam Frank is doing, truthful it’s intelligibly thing successful the air,” helium says. “There’s surely questions astir the manipulation of the sanctity of the Holocaust successful the fashionable imagination. I’ve gotten immoderate emails that are like, ‘People don’t instrumentality this taxable earnestly anymore due to the fact that of you,’ and I’m like, ‘I’ve been talking to radical for the past 3 years; they were acceptable to not instrumentality it earnestly anymore.’”

Slam Frank’s last 20 minutes, acceptable disconnected by a genuinely audacious crippled twist, are its astir controversial, widening its scope from humanities satire to modern excoriation. It was the lone facet to springiness Stovall immoderate misgivings, earlier helium recognized its value.

“My gut instinct was, ‘Don’t bash this to my girls,’” helium says, fractional joking. “I had to deliberation astir it and beryllium like, ‘Why bash I person a occupation with this? I don’t really person a occupation with this. This is hilarious.’ And the crushed I had a occupation with it is wherefore I deliberation it’s important to enactment it onstage, right?”