My Memories of "The Diary of Anne
Frank"
In her
elementary school class's production of "James and
the Giant Peach",
Connie had the title role and and enjoyed the well-earned
applause she
recieved. In middle school, she began planning with her
classmate Ryan to
produce a superior production of "The Diary of Anne
Frank" with Connie
as Anne. Ryan had seen a production of the play and was
dismayed that it
was very theatrical looking and unbelievable. He
determined to produce and
direct a truly realistic version. They decided to delay
their project for a year to
give time to find an excellent cast and production crew.
They decided to add
Martha Furey to assist and mentor Ryan.
Ryan was very familiar with the local theater personell,
and chose a great cast
of teenagers and adults. Ryan knew the director of the
local children's theater,
Martha Murphy, and she urged him to replace Connie with
an actress who had
starred in her plays. Connie objected, and a compromise
was reached: Both
actresses would play the part on different nights. An
introductory scene was
added of a friend of Anne setting the scene, and the
actresses also shared
that role on different nights. But the other actress
joined the cast quite late
and then missed many rehearsals due to a previous
commitment. So Connie
was given the additional responsibility of teaching her
the stage directions
she had missed on where to stand, when to speak, which
way to face, and
when to move.
I was driving Connie to the rehearsals, and one night I
decided to stay and
watch. They asked me to read a part, because one of the
actors had just
resigned from the cast. I agreed and enjoyed reading the
part and following
the staging directions. After the rehearsal, they asked
me to take the role
permanently. I had not done much acting before, except in
high school class
plays and a few short skits, and discovered I enjoyed it
a lot. (Of course,
it was great fun practicing running lines at home with
Connie.) After the play
ended, I began auditioning for other commuity theater
plays.
Ryan insisted on a realistic feel for the audience. He
avoided the usual
theater rules against upstaging other actors: He allowed
line of sight
problems, he permitted actors to stand with their backs
to the audience,
he had all costume changes done in full view of the
audience, and during the
intermission, the actors were to remain on stage as they
rearranged furniture
while remaining strictly in character. I recall a friend
in the audience tried to
greet me during the intermission, but I remained in
character and ignored her.
One night while we were driving to the rehearsal, Connie
asked me for some
advice. The script called for her to scream as from a
nightmare in one scene.
She said she had never screamed before and wanted to try
one. I told her to
go ahead and scream. She gave a loud, terrifying,
blood-curdling scream.
After I got the car back onto the road, I assured her
that her scream was
perfect. In every performance, when the theater was
totally dark and silent,
since the characters were all sleeping, Connie would give
out her startling
nightmare scream. One of the actors who was near her
later confided to me
that even though he knew that scream was coming, it would
leave him startled
and shaking every time.
We rented the local theater, and they were concerned that
our "amateur"
production would fail. They offered to refund our rental
cost for one night,
but our play was a huge success, with standing ovations
and some sold out
performances. Our producer surprised us after the final
performance when
the production was acually profitable and gave each actor
a small share of
those profits!
Connie was superb in her portrayal of Anne, and Martha
Muphy told her,
that her performance was "Spectacular!".
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