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Andrew Fox and Joel Sinensky’s Slam Frank, choreographed by Esosa Oviasu, music directed by Alex Harrington, and directed by Sam LaFrage, as back onstage at the Orpheum Theatre. Inspired by a 2022 viral Twitter thread that asked, “Did Anne Frank ever acknowledge her white privilege?”, SLAM FRANK imagines what happens when a progressive theater company asks themselves that same question, applying the rules and tropes of progressive theater to The Diary of Anne Frank. Transcending all taste and decency, they transform Anne Frank’s true story into an intersectional, multi-ethnic, genderqueer, decolonized, anti-capitalist, hyper-empowering Afro-Latin hip-hop musical.
The cast includes most of the originating ensemble from the developmental run: Olivia Bernábe as Anita (Anne), Alex Lewis as Peter, Austen Horne as Edith, Rocky Paterra as Otto, John Anker Bow as Mr. Van Daan, Jaz Zepatos as Mrs. Van Daan, Walker Stovall as Asst. Stage Manager and introducing Amelia Louise Barr as Margot. Understudies include Olamide Asanpaola, Ashlyn Combs, Matthew Krob, Isabella Orosco and Keegan Sells.
Check out what the critics are saying about the new musical.
Melissa Rose Bernardo, New York Stage Review: All throughout, Slam Frank was earning a healthy mix of laughs, gasps, and oh-no-they-didn’t mouth-drops. Will you find it funny? Distasteful? Shocking? Absolutely. A few months ago, crack political commentator Lara Trump, after watching a clip of an earlier production, delivered her critique: “That was grotesque.” So it looks like the show is offending the right people.
Matthew Wexler, One-Minute Critic: The Israel-Palestine conflict also receives plenty of attention, but to dismiss Slam Frank as “pro” this or “anti” that would simplify its stance. The playbill’s “Content Warning: Everything” earns its place. This is the bare-knuckle boxing of live theater. If you want sanitized satire, see Schmigadoon! Director Sam LaFrage keeps the pace fast, with some bits inevitably flying by without a chance to land fully. But those with an ear for musical theater will pick up on Fox’s nods to existing works, including Hamilton, Dear Evan Hansen, In the Heights, and Suffs, which eventually feel derivative rather than propulsive.
Elyse Gardner, New York Sun: Great satire can require courage, particularly if the subject matter is dark, and few subjects are as dark as the Holocaust. Several years back, the composer and lyricist Andrew Fox and the playwright and screenwriter Joel Sinensky were intrigued by a social media query that was either satirical or, more likely, idiotic, concerning one of the Shoah’s most famous victims, Anne Frank: Did she acknowledge her white privilege?
Drew Gillis, AV Club: The reason that Slam Frank succeeds in this territory is because its real target is not politics—though it’s not shy on that front—but performance and theater itself. The show, written by composer Andrew Fox and librettist Joel Sinensky, has contempt for contemporary commercial theater that clearly comes from a place of deep respect for the form. There’s a realism, or perhaps a pessimism, in the denouement about theater’s ability to affect change. It’s a medium that’s constrained by geography and prohibitively expensive for large swaths of people. But given just how confrontational the show gets, Fox and Sinensky clearly still think it’s worth trying. Slam Frank probably won’t change the world. Maybe it’ll change theater, and maybe it won’t. But I can’t think of anything else I’ve seen on stage this year that has occupied so much of my mental space after I left the room.
Hayley Levitt, Theatremania: Slam Frank is proof positive that a decisive vision will not, and cannot, win everyone’s favor. As the show spirals into increasingly untamed territory, even the most amenable to boundary-pushing might start to sweat. You may even decide that it crosses the Rubicon, trading satire for outright antisemitism. No doubt, Slam Frank is a bucking bronco in a world of pony rides. But if you can hang on till the end, you might find that getting knocked around can jostle new things loose.
Suzanna Bowling, Times Square Chronicles: The cast is extraordinary. The score is terrific. The book needs clarity. The premise remains difficult for me to accept, yyet, would I tell you to see it? Absolutely.
Jackson McHenry, Vulture: Slam Frank tends to function best when it’s doing its own version of Forbidden Broadway, full of in-jokes, Patti LuPone references, and let’s-put-on-a-show spirit. Sam Lafarge, the director, is fond of sending up Jamie Lloyd — the show-within-a-show’s director must’ve loved Sunset Blvd., given the number of cameras involved — and peppers his staging with Easter eggs for an eager Off Broadway audience, from the beginner-level use of a Dear Evan Hansen polo to the more advanced quoting of niche theater TikToks. I was most won over by Slam Frank when it became un-selfconsciously sillier: a montage of powerful women that alternates between respected figures like Oprah and infamous scammers, pornstars, and killers before just projecting one photo of Anne Hathaway after another; a moment where a character announces they are non-binary, which “falls under the trans umbrella,” and they unfurl an actual prop umbrella. It’s lame. It’s dumb. It’s good musical comedy.
Average Rating: 72.9%
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