A hip-hop musical that reimagines Anne Frank's story as a lens on modern identity politics is heading back to the East Village this fall. Slam Frank, which played Off-Broadway last season, is set to begin preview performances for an encore engagement at the historic Orpheum Theatre.
According to Spectrum News NY1, the production puts a bold new spin on the diary of Anne Frank, and creator Andrew Fox along with cast member Olivia Bernábe spoke with the station about the show ahead of its return. The musical originated from a viral 2022 Twitter thread that asked whether Anne Frank possessed “white privilege,” a provocation that became the real-world spark for the show, as detailed on Wikipedia. Fox and book writer Joel Sinensky built the satire around that question rather than around Anne Frank herself.
A Play-Within-a-Play About Performative Activism
Slam Frank uses a frame narrative centered on an overzealous progressive theater troupe that reimagines Anne Frank as “Anita Franco,” described as a pansexual Latina girlboss with a hip-hop diary, while Peter van Daan becomes a non-binary dancer, according to Broadway.com. That structure is meant to clarify that the show is parodying identity politics and modern theater tropes, not mocking Anne Frank directly. In one especially provocative scene, actors recite lines in Spanish framed as anti-racist empowerment rhetoric that are, in fact, translated verbatim from Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf, including the line “If you are racially conscious, you cannot be enslaved... by the Jews,” as reported by the Times of Israel. The technique is intended to illustrate how totalist rhetoric can hide behind progressive-sounding language.
Dates, Cast, and Creative Team for the Orpheum Run
The Off-Broadway encore begins previews on September 17, opens officially on October 4, and runs through November 30, per the same Times of Israel account of the production's methods and Broadway.com's reporting on the engagement. Directed by Sam LaFrage with choreography by Esosa Oviasu, the fall staging brings back originating cast members Olivia Bernábe as Anita, Alex Lewis as Peter, Austen Horne as Edith, and Rocky Paterra as Otto Frank, with several understudies also announced for the run.
The production previously had a developmental run at Asylum NYC in fall 2025 before landing this encore engagement. It will take up residence at the Orpheum Theatre, a 299-seat venue at 126 Second Avenue built in 1904 that once housed the Off-Broadway percussion hit Stomp for nearly 29 years, according to the Times of Israel's coverage of the theater's history. The building sits in what was historically Manhattan's Yiddish Theater District.
Critical Acclaim Amid Online Backlash
Following its 2025 developmental run, Slam Frank was named a “Best Comedy of 2025” by the New York Times, which called it “gleefully provocative,” while former Times theater critic Ben Brantley described it as “the most important new show around.” The recognition came even as the production faced online petitions seeking to block its premiere and op-eds accusing it of trivializing antisemitism, underscoring the split reaction the show continues to generate.
The production has leaned into that controversy as part of its marketing. To announce ticket sales for the Orpheum run in June, the team held a tongue-in-cheek promotional event dubbed the “Off-Broadway's First Annual Official Belated Pro-Diversity, Pre-Julyteenth, Cismasc-Affirming, Anti-Capitalist, LatinX Anne Frank Fiesta de Quinceañera Box Office Discount Ticket Release Event,” a title that reflects the creators' immersive, satirical press style. The show's logo also parodies the branding of the Broadway musical Hamilton, depicting its central character standing atop a Star of David in the same pose as Alexander Hamilton atop a five-pointed American star, according to TodayTix.
Fan Support Fueled a Cast Album
Ahead of its 2026 return, Slam Frank launched a Kickstarter campaign to record an original Off-Broadway cast album featuring vocals from the 2025 cast. The campaign became one of the highest-funded cast album fundraisers in Kickstarter history, with backers receiving tracks in May.
As previews approach next month, the production is positioning itself once again as a stress test of extreme identity politics layered onto a Holocaust narrative, rather than a mockery of Anne Frank herself. How general audiences will navigate that provocative material at the historic Orpheum remains an open question as the show returns to the East Village stage.
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