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Directing `Diary'

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Susan Kerner draws on her own German Jewish heritage in a classic tale
of the human spirit at Meadow Brook Theatre.

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SUZANNE CHESSLER

Special to the Jewish News

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o plays about Anne Frank
ave dominated the artistic
attention of Susan Kerner,
who brings new dimensions
to the subject as she directs The Diary
of Anne Frank for Meadow Brook
Theatre.
Kerner directed this play once before
for the George Street Playhouse in New
Jersey, where she was resident director
for 10 years. She later directed And

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and been a theater professor, does con-
siderable research before taking on any
new project. She visited the Anne Frank
house in Amsterdam, where she learned
about Silberberg and that he actually
was living close to her in New Jersey.
"He had been silent for 50 years
about his relationship with Anne
Frank, and I brought him into the
rehearsal process and got him to talk
about this for the first time," Kerner
says. "It was so inspiring for the actress
playing Anne to be able to talk to
someone who actually knew her and
touched her.
"After that first production, I was
asked by a Young Audiences Group to
help create a new piece about Anne
Frank that could tour schools. We
commissioned James Still, an award-
winning playwright for young audi-
ences, and he focused on three families
— the Franks, the Silberbergs and the

Schlosses — and how their lives inter-
twined."
As she inquired about the reality
behind the plays, Kerner became very
close to Silberberg and Schloss, whose
mother married Anne's father, Otto, after
he lost his first wife in the Holocaust.
Audiences, before and after each per-
formance, will be able to view very dis-
parate, loaned items, such as a table-
cloth and linens that were part of
Anne's parents' trousseau, Otto Frank's
business cards and costumes belonging
to Schloss' mother.
"The Meadow Brook cast will get a
chance to talk to both Ed and Eva over
the phone," says Kerner, also planning
a cast visit to the Holocaust Memorial
Center in West Bloomfield. "They'll
be able to talk to them about what it
was like to be in hiding.
"Ed was in hiding for two years in
Belgium, and he was the last person to

Then They Came for Me: Remembering
the World of Anne Frank seven times,
including a production that recently
toured the British Isles for six months.
The Meadow Brook play, dramatiz-
ing the young Frank's diary writings as
she hid from the Nazis, runs Oct. 18-
Nov. 12. It will be supplemented with
an exhibition of Frank family posses-
sions saved by relatives in
Switzerland.
"I feel very connected to this
story because I've worked with
Ed Silberberg, Anne Frank's
boyfriend right before she went
into hiding, and Eva Geiringer
Schloss, Anne Frank's friend
before the war and posthumous
stepsister," explains Kerner, 55,
about to make her production
debut in Michigan with the orig-
inal stage version of the drama.
Written in 1955 by the hus-
band-and-wife team of Frances
Goodrich and Albert Hackett,
the play received Broadway's
"Triple Crown" for Best Play,
winning the Pulitzer Prize, the
Tony Award and New York
Drama Circle Critics Award in
1956.
"I personally identify with this
story because my family is
German Jewish. The story made
me understand my family better.
They are very assimilated as the
Franks were. By researching, I
also learned I was born the day
Holland was liberated and the
day that Peter, the boy in hiding
Above: Meadow Brook director Susan E. Kerner: "I think it's very important to make this
[with Anne Frank], was killed.
story live for people today"
So I feel identification with the
script.".
Top right: New York actress Nicole Raphael stars as Anne Frank, bottom right, at Meadow
Kerner, who has had directing
Brook Theatre.
assignments around the country

