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NEWS RELEASE
MARIPOSA ARTS THEATRE
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When Mariposa Arts Theatre (MAT) stages its new production of The Diary of Anne Frank, in the dramatization by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, it will be turning one more page in a story famous across the world.
In 1942, when Anne was just 13, her family and another Jewish family went into hiding from the Nazis. Shut up in a few rooms above an office in Amsterdam, Anne kept a diary into which she poured all her hopes and dreams, anger, fear and love.
The families survived together for two years before being betrayed, arrested, and sent to the death camps. None survived except Otto Frank, Anne’s father, (played by John Copeland), who, in 1950, had the diary published.
It went on to become this play in 1955, a movie in 1959, and has been translated into over 60 languages.
The play is a powerful dramatization of Anne’s diary entries during those two terrible years.
In turn moving, funny, heart-wrenching, and ultimately uplifting, it explores how the courage, resilience, and generosity of the human spirit can rise above the darkness of the Holocaust.
In Anne’s words: “I still believe, in spite of everything, people are truly good at heart.”
It has been staged already by MAT, some 20 years ago, though not in this new updated Wendy Kesselman version.
In today’s world, with a rising tide of anti-Semitism even in Canada, Anne’s story seems especially relevant.
Director Ron Payne says the play is important for the same reasons as The War Show, the last show he directed for MAT.
“The world should never forget it happened, and it’s happened again, in Rwanda, in Bosnia, in Myanmar, and it’s still going on," said Payne. "It’s especially important for young people, they should know the history. I hope they never have to go through it in their own lives.”
To make sure students do have a chance to see it, there will be a special schools performance for the three Orillia high schools, a first for MAT.
Midland Secondary School student Hope Adams, who takes the lead as Anne Frank, says: “Anne is such an icon, I almost feel unworthy of playing her. I feel such pressure because I want to do her justice, to present the real Anne through the play and to do it in the best way I can.
"But this play shows that despite terrible circumstances there can be moments of great hope, and I find that very inspiring.”
As well as Adams, the cast of eight includes two other high school students and two young adults as well as five veteran MAT actors.
“It’s real community theatre,” says producer John Caryl. “We have people of all ages working together to make it happen, backstage as well as on stage.”
One challenge has been to fit the two floors and several rooms of the Secret Annex into the confined space of the Studio Theatre.
“Audiences will be amazed at all we’ve managed to pack in,” says Caryl. “The stage is just filled with furniture, beds, food – everything needed for eight people to survive for years.”
The Diary of Anne Frank will run in the Orillia Opera House Studio Theatre, Feb. 7 to 17, Thursdays to Saturdays at 7.30 p.m. with Sunday matinees at 2 p.m.
Tickets are $25 ($20 for groups for 10 or more) from the Box Office at 705-326-8011 or online.
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