SPAIN: Cuban-born teenager starring as Anne Frank tells Reuters how much the part inspired her

Record ID: 783695

  • Title: SPAIN: Cuban-born teenager starring as Anne Frank tells Reuters how much the part inspired her
  • Date: 7th February 2008
  • Summary: MADRID, SPAIN (FEBRUARY 04, 2008) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF MADRID DOWNTOWN THEATRE HOSTING ANNE FRANK MUSICAL BIG BANNER DISPLAYING ANNE FRANK'S OFFICIAL POSTER
  • Embargoed: 22nd February 2008 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Spain
  • Country: Spain
  • Topics: Entertainment
  • Reuters ID: LVAESBLZ7XMNRE8U035MN6L7UCQN
  • Story Text: Producers in Spain have turned the life of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who wrote a diary while hiding from Nazis, into a musical, tearing up the wide convention of a sugar-coated ending in the genre. The Spanish language production: "Anne Frank, A Song to Life", chronicles the German girl's life as she hid in an attic in Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944, before the Frank family were betrayed and set to camps where Anne died.
    The three-million euro (4.5 million U.S. dollar) production, closer in style to Les Miserables than Cats, is the first of its kind to focus on Frank's life.
    Director Rafael Alvaro who came up with the idea for the musical ten years ago said the show's aim was to project a vision of hope and optimism and he defended it against accusations that the subject was too serious a matter to be made into a musical. Buddy Elias, Frank's 82-year-old cousin an only surviving relative has said his charity, the Anne Frank Fonds, was firmly against the show: "The Holocaust is not a theme to be made into a musical," he was reported by the AFP news agency as saying.
    Alvaro said his production was a sensitive portrait of Frank's life and pointed out that it had the backing of the Anne Frank House organisation which runs a museum in the canalside warehouse where Anne hid in a secret annex behind a false bookcase.
    "If the musical -- done in an exquisite, delicate, important way -- reaches the great public not only here but worldwide, that is success for me," he told Reuters after presenting the production to journalists at Madrid's Calderon Theatre.
    Anne was transported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and then Bergen-Belsen where she died of typhus aged 15 along with her sister Margot in March 1945, a few weeks before the camp was liberated by the British Army. Alvaro searched for actors via a simple message on the Internet: "Looking for Anne Frank", and eventually cast Cuban Isabella Castillo to the part of Anne.
    The 13-year old from Havana, who belies her age as she belts out the musical's emotional melodies, said it was a privilege to play the part of someone as courageous as Frank.

    "You find this girl, in such bad circumstances (but) she always finds hope. That has helped me a lot," she told Reuters.
    Producers say they may take the musical on tour and translate it into other languages after its run in Madrid, starting on Feb 28.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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