Anne Being Frank (excerpt)

Synopsis:

‘Anne Being Frank’ is a total re-imagining of the story of Anne Frank.

It poses the basic question:  Had Anne known precisely what was in store for her and her family at the hands of the Nazis, would she still have written the famous line:  ‘In spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart’?

The play takes place within three ‘worlds’:  The world of the secret annex, where Anne and her family are hiding from their German occupiers – this is the story we all know, though it is now retold in hindsight.  The world of the concentration camp – Bergen-Belsen – where Anne and her sister, Margot, ended their days.  And an imagined world, where Anne is going over the manuscript of her diary together with her editor at a publishing house in Manhattan after the war.

But, at great personal cost, she has, with her devastating new insight into the depths of human depravity, rewritten her entire diary, so that she is constantly having to justify her choices to her editor, who dearly wishes to maintain the purity and innocence of the original.

It is a re-imagining that is designed to force us to view an iconic story that we thought we knew through entirely fresh eyes, leading us to question certain dear-held assumptions.

Character Breakdown:
ANNE FRANK  13-15 (though played by adult)

Running-time: 90 minutes

Production History:
Off-Broadway World Premiere – Emerging Artists Theatre NYC, September 2023
Florida tour, 2024
Sydney Opera House.  2025

Awards:
Best Off-Broadway Solo Performance, Broadway World Awards, 2024
Best Off-Broadway Production, Broadway World Awards, 2024
Runner-up Best Off-Broadway New Play, Broadway World Awards, 2024
Nominated Best Stage Play, Australian Writers’ Guild Awards (AWGIES), 2025

Reviews:

*****
‘.. many profound moments and phrases that stop the heart..’
Dana McCoy
All About Solo – Critic’s Choice

‘.. an important play.. very powerful.. very tense and unnerving.. really heart-breaking.. really chilling..  Watching a fictional male editor trying to edit the horror out of Anne’s story is honestly one of the more frightening things I’ve seen on a stage in a while. ‘
Jena Tesse Fox
Broadway Radio

‘Ron Elisha is an excellent writer, [his prose] often poignant, even poetic..  This play will break your heart.’
Paulanne Simmons
Theater – New York

‘This Anne is a smart, warm, angry and, yes, sensual woman – probably what she would have become..  Imaginative details paint a portrait that is difficult to forget.’
Joel Benjamin
Theater Scene.Net

‘You may think you know Anne from her diary and the many portrayals of her life and death but here it is even more poignant.’
Eva Heinemann
Hi!  Drama

Excerpt available for download for free.