And Then They Came For Me; Remembering the World of Anne Frank - November 9

Release Date: 9/25/2002. Expired: 11/9/2002

The Renaissance Repertory Co. presents a unique and dramatic production that follows two Jewish families living in fear under the reign of the Nazis in World War II. And Then They Came for Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank is part of the Rep Co.’s field trip offerings for 2002-03 at The Renaissance Center and will be presented in a public performance at 7 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9. Tickets are $10 for adults, $8 for seniors and $5 for children under 13.

And Then They Came for Me is a unique theatrical production that weaves videotaped interviews with two Holocaust survivors with live actors who re-create scenes from their lives.

“This play is about witnessing the effect this horrible period had on two particular families,” said Hal Partlow, managing director of the Rep Co. “It is now more than 50 years after the fact and if we don’t get survivors’ stories now, we’ll lose them forever.”

Written by James Still, And Then They Came for Me is one of the most widely produced new plays of recent seasons. Still has been recognized as one of the nation’s leading writers for family audiences and is a recipient of the Charlotte B. Chorpenning Playwright Award for Distinguished Body of Work. His plays have been produced throughout North America and the United Kingdom and he is the playwright-in-residence at the Indiana Repertory Theatre.

“This is not a 'history play.' It is a play about families and their histories,” said Still. “I am a writer who remembers vividly reading Anne Frank’s diary the first time at the age of 12. Something stirred inside me - still stirs inside me 25 years later. The only way we will remember the Holocaust is if we hear from the people who were actually there. Then, I’m convinced, we’ll never be able to forget. And maybe then, by remembering, it will never happen again.

“Finally, this is a play about questions. Many of the questions about the Holocaust are unanswerable. Even so, that does not diminish the importance of asking the questions.”

The multimedia presentation includes videotaped interviews with Ed Silverberg and Eva Schloss, who both survived the Holocaust as Jewish teenagers.

Silverberg, known as Hello to his friends, was Anne Frank's first boyfriend and is mentioned in her now-famous diary. Silverberg narrowly escaped the Nazis before his family went into hiding in Belgium for 26 months.

Schloss and Frank were the same age and lived in the same apartment building in Amsterdam. Her family went into hiding the same day as the Frank family and, like the Frank family, was betrayed. On her 15th birthday, Schloss and her family were arrested by the Nazis and sent to concentration camps. Eva and her mother, Mutti, survived and were liberated from Auschwitz and after the war her mother married Anne’s father, Otto Frank.

Part oral history, part dramatic action, part direct address, part remembrance, the ensemble-driven And Then They Came for Me breaks new ground and has been acclaimed by audiences and critics in productions across the United States. In addition to the live actors and videotaped interviews, the show includes music that was specially written for its first production in Indianapolis in 1996.

“It is a seamless play with scenes that flow in and out of each other as we follow these two families,” Partlow said. “As part of our preparation, the Rep Co. did research at the Jewish Community Center in Nashville and met with a Holocaust survivor.

“It is one of our most ambitious endeavors in the short history of the Rep Co. There has been renewed interest in the period of World War II and the Holocaust and it is quickly becoming more important in the history curriculum of our schools. This play touches on Anne Frank, so it touches on the literary element as well as the historical element,” Partlow said.

The production includes a question-and-answer session with the actors in both field trip presentations and the public performance.

For more information on the availability of And Then They Came for Me for school field trips, contact Janine Langley at (615)740-5566 or . For more information or to purchase tickets for the public performance Nov. 9, call (615)740-5570.

The Renaissance Center is an arts and technology education and performing arts center at 855 Highway 46 South in Dickson, just 35 miles west of Nashville on Interstate 40 at exit 172.

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