page_title: Anne (play)
section_title: Production
hierarchical_section_title: Anne (play) / Production
caption_attribution_description: English: Theater Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Exterior (front) of the building, with its logo visible on the right, and a poster for theatre production 'ANNE' on the left.
context_page_description: ANNE is a 2014 play dramatising the story of Jewish diarist Anne Frank's period in hiding in the Secret Annex in Amsterdam during the Second World War. The play was the first major new adaptation of Frank's diary since the 1955 play, and was both authorised and initiated by the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, the organisation set up by Frank's father Otto Frank to preserve his daughter's legacy and work. As such, Anne was the first adaptation allowed to quote literal passages from the diary. After a near two-year run in the Netherlands, the play closed in 2016, and had production runs in Germany and Israel. The play also formed the basis for the first German film adaptation of the diary.
  On June 16, 2019, ANNE, A NEW PLAY made its U.S. premiere at the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, CA in celebration of what would have been Anne Frank’s 90th birthday. The play was newly adapted for American audiences by Nick Blaemire from a translation by Susan Massotty.
context_section_description: ANNE opened in Theater Amsterdam on May 8th 2014 in the presence of king Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and Buddy Elias, at the time the last remaining family member of the Franks. The initiative for the production had come from the Anne Frank Foundation in Basel, set up by Otto Frank after the war to safeguard the legacy of Anne Frank and her writing, and to educate about the Holocaust. This meant that ANNE was the first adaptation of the diary to be allowed to quote direct passages, whereas earlier version had had to resort to rephrasing Frank's literal wording. 
  Purpose-built for ANNE by production company Imagine Nation, Theater Amsterdam is an 1100-seat theatre with a circular auditorium, allowing for quick scene changes through the use of a track system on which sets can be moved speedily into place by being driven around the audience seating banks. The theatre's architecture is modelled on a temporary theatre in Katwijk, home to Soldaat van Oranje, the longest-running musical in Dutch theatre history created by the same artistic team as ANNE. 
  The scale of the newly built venue allowed the producers, Tony-award winner Robin de Levita and former head of Sony Television Kees Abrahams, to recreate several sets in life size and with historical accuracy. Sets included the entire secret annex, Otto Frank's company's offices at Prinsengracht 263, as well as an apartment block from Amsterdam's Merwedeplein where the Frank family lived in the early years of the war. To ensure visibility to the audience, the annex part of the stage set was mounted on a revolve which could be raised and lowered as needed. During performance, images from the original hand-written diary, as well as historical film fragments and photos, were projected around the set. To allow for international visitors, a system of seatback-mounted iPads with real-time subtitles or audio dubbing in eight languages was installed.
  To play Anne Frank, an extensive set of auditions was held, and the role was ultimately given to Rosa da Silva, a Dutch actress of half-Portuguese descent who, at the time, was in her final year at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam. Direction was by Theu Boermans, then artistic director of the national theatre of the Netherlands, and set design by Austrian designer Bernhard Hammer. Rob Das reprised his role as helper Jan Gies from the Ben Kingsley-led ABC miniseries Anne Frank: The Whole Story. After the 2014 world premiere in Amsterdam, subsequent productions took place at the Ernst Deutsch Theater in Hamburg in 2015 and in Israel in 2016.
caption: Theater Amsterdam, Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Exterior (front) of the building, with its logo visible on the right, and a poster for theatre production 'ANNE' on the left.
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