The Slam Frank musical, a 2025 satire that reimagines Anne Frank through a contemporary lens, has sparked both enthusiasm and discomfort as it prepares to open Off-Broadway at the Orpheum on 4 October. After a sold-out staging at the Asylum NYC comedy club last year, billed now as a workshop, the production arrives with a reputation for provoking strong reactions. Some audience members have even left mid-show, according to cast accounts.
Conceived by composer-lyricist Andrew Fox, the piece employs a show-within-a-show device to lampoon the impulse to retrofit historical narratives to modern identity politics. In this version, the central character “Anita” is portrayed as a pansexual Latina, her mother is Black, her father is neurodivergent, and the family are depicted as immigrants hiding in Amsterdam. Fox cautions against labeling the work as anti-woke and says it aims to sift through the cultural turbulence of the past decade for comedy, rather than deliver a single viewpoint.
Fox began developing the idea after seeing a 2022 social media post debating Anne Frank’s so-called white privilege. He reconnected with writer Joel Sinensky, who proposed the backstage framing. Sinensky says the pair set out to push back against didactic theater by creating a work that interrogates, rather than instructs.
The production draws musical and visual cues from Hamilton, riffing on its logo and rapid-fire rhymes, while deliberately sidestepping a clear ideological stance. Fox, who manages the show’s social media, has leaned into misdirection and provocation. He says the creative team committed early to undermining any moment that felt like a lecture and instead focused on eliciting reactions and laughs.
Online discourse has ranged widely, with commenters branding the creators everything from pro-Zionist to antisemitic and from far right to far left. Sinensky views that split as evidence the satire lands differently across audiences. Professional responses have been warmer. A former New York Times theater critic wrote on X that it may be the most important new show around, and director Sam LaFrage recalls Patti LuPone visiting the Asylum NYC run and saying she was moved.
LaFrage says the piece embraces discomfort as a legitimate artistic tool. He describes the play-within-the-play format as a safe container to voice ideas that artists have avoided. Several company members frame the project as a chance to poke fun at their own past certainties about culture and politics.
The script also skewers the jargon that can cloud contemporary debates. Characters tangle themselves in intricate, well-meaning language, which Fox says reflects a style of discourse that can become detached from clear thought. He describes the show as a portrait of a culture that can feel increasingly abstract, sometimes to comic or unsettling effect.
The work’s irreverence previously drew pushback. Fox says a high-profile BMI workshop removed the musical after a non-binary coming-out song, though later participants in the program embraced that number. Olivia Bernábe, the non-binary actor who plays Anita, calls the song hysterical and says the show teases the conflation of identity with ethics without mocking identity itself. They acknowledge some attendees have walked out, noting that thresholds for satire vary.
The Off-Broadway staging extends the show’s provocation into the theater space, where the Orpheum entrance has been styled like the bookcase concealing the Frank family’s hideout, with a neon sign reading “The Attic.” Fox believes audiences were already primed for irreverence surrounding sacred subjects and says the production reflects broader cultural questions about how the Holocaust is treated in popular imagination.
The final stretch of the musical, punctuated by a bold plot twist, has proved most divisive. One cast member says initial reservations gave way to recognizing why the moment belongs onstage. The controversy, they suggest, is integral to the point.
- Slam Frank is at the Orpheum theatre, New York, until 30 November.
Slam Frank musical heads Off-Broadway
As it begins its limited run, the Slam Frank musical arrives with a groundswell of curiosity and contention, positioning the Off-Broadway production as one of the season’s most sought-after tickets.
For more context on how contemporary productions navigate provocation and audience expectations, see our review of Monster: The Lizzie Borden Story swings for shock over substance.