About the Play:

Winner of the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for Drama

The Diary of Anne Frank has long been a favourite of acting teachers for female/male scenes.

The Diary of Anne Frank is a full-length drama adapted for the stage by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett, from Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl, edited by Otto Frank. Set in German-occupied Amsterdam, The Diary of Anne Frank is a stage version of the posthumously published impressions of the teenage girl who hid from the Nazis for two years with family members and others. Her story of strength in the face of the evils of the Holocaust is suspenseful, surprisingly humorous, heartwarming – and has a message of hope and courage during a time of unimaginable horrors.

The Diary of Anne Frank is based on the best-selling diaries of Anne Frank, one of the most recognizable victims of the Holocaust. All recorded and accounted through the perspective of a teenage Jewish girl who left her diary behind as history's echo. It was published by the girl's father – the only known survivor from the family – following the war and has since been reproduced in more than 60 languages. The book inspired this stage adaptation depicting the legendary trials and tribulations of the Frank and Van Daan families hiding from Nazi persecution in an Amsterdam attic for two years before being sent to a concentration camp. Her smiling spirit is always on the move and very few plays have moved the Broadway critics to write such glowing notices, receiving the unanimous acclaim of all the top New York reviewers. The Diary of Anne Frank is, sadly, brimming with teachable moments that continue to touch the conscience of the world.

The Diary of Anne Frank premiered in 1955 on Broadway at the Cort Theatre. Praise for the production was widespread. The play went on to win the 1955 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, as well as three Tony Awards, the Critics Circle Award, and virtually every other coveted prize of the theatre. The production moved to the Ambassador Theatre, also on Broadway, in 1957. Running for over 700 performances before being produced throughout America and the world. The play has become a favourite scene study vehicle in acting classes and workshops and is regularly performed in regional, high school, college, and community theatre productions.

Cast: 5 female, 5 male

What people say:

"The Diary of Anne Frank ... remains a regional-theater staple. Small wonder: It tells an emotionally overwhelming story with a simplicity that brings it within reach of just about any cast imaginable, students and amateurs included." — Wall Street Journal

"A lovely tender, rueful, moving drama. It's strange how the shining spirit of a young girl now dead can filter down through the years and inspire a group of theatrical professionals in a foreign land." — The New York Times

"The precise quality of the new play at the Cort is the quality of glowing, ineradicable life – life in its warmth, its wonder, its spasms of anguish and its wild and flaring humor … Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett have fashioned a wonderfully sensitive and theatrically craftsmanlike narrative out of the real-life legacy left us by a spirited and straightforward Jewish girl. A play that is – for all its pathos – as bright and shining as a banner." — The New York Herald-Tribune

"…a moving document on the stage." — The New York Post

"There is so much beauty, warm humor, gentle pity…in The Diary of Anne Frank that it is difficult to imagine how this play could be contained in one set on one stage … this is a fine drama." — The New York Daily News

About the Playwright:

Frances Goodrich (1890-1984) and Albert Hackett (1900-1995) were American dramatists and screenwriters who began their thirty-four-year collaboration in 1928. Enormously successful and remarkably prolific, the two were married while working on their first Broadway hit. Their success on Broadway eventually led to the pair being signed as a writing team by MGM, where they launched the popular Thin Man series. Writing the stage version of The Diary of Anne Frank was the achievement of which both Goodrich and Hackett were most proud. It took the couple two years and eight rewrites before they came up with a draft which pleased Otto Frank, Anne's father.