Slam Frank, a new hip-hop musical about Anne Frank, sounds like a bad joke. But if you listen to the conversations of those leaving the Orpheum Theater each night, it's clear this off-Broadway satire is one of the most proactive and important cultural commentaries of the decade. After reading the viral 2022 tweet that dared to ask: "Did Anne Frank ever acknowledge her white privilege?", writer and composer Andrew Fox had an idea.
"What if like a progressive theater company gave Anne Frank the Hamilton treatment and just stripped all the characters of their Jewishness and made them whatever the fashionable marginalization of the moment is?" Fox told Newsweek. "I pictured it in my head, and I laughed a lot. And then I expected it to float away like every other dumb idea, but it didn't." The idea stuck.
Fox and his collaborators, including writer and childhood friend Joel Sinensky, began writing songs, posting clips online and building an audience that wasn't entirely sure whether Slam Frank was a real musical or an elaborate bit. But after table reads, a cast recording and a 2025 run at the Asylum NYC, the answer became unmistakably clear. The show officially opened in the East Village earlier this month.
The production is a satirical "show within a show," depicting a troupe of actors attempting to modernize Anne Frank's story by reimagining the characters through contemporary identity politics. Anne becomes Anita Franco, a Mexican teenager. Otto Frank is portrayed as neurodivergent.
Peter van Daan is nonbinary. Edith Frank is reduced to a theater director's concept of a "strong Black woman." Margot Frank, the only remaining Jewish character, is largely silent for much of the production. Nothing is accidental; everything is intentional, down to the songs playing as the audience walks in and out of the theater, including "Thrift Shop" by Macklemore and "Gold Digger" by Kanye West.
It has elements of The Producers, Caberet, Dr. Strangelove and Book of Mormon, using shock and stereotypes that might surprise and, at times, offend, audiences to reveal greater truths and meaning. The show's creators and cast insist the target is not Anne Frank, marginalized communities or diversity itself.
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