By Allision Heldman
Melissa Friesen. Wit file photo by Nathan Heinze
The fall play, “The Diary of Anne Frank,” will be performed at 7:30 p.m. Nov. 10 to 12 and 2:30 p.m. Nov. 13 in Ramseyer Auditorium. The play is inspired by Anne’s diary, which she wrote while living in hiding in a small attic during the Holocaust.
Anne was a girl who lived in a time where being Jewish wasn’t accepted in her country. The Holocaust was in full swing, and Anne and her family were trying to not go to the concentration camps. They went into hiding in an attic before eventually being found. The events that occur in the play are almost like what is written in her diary during her time in hiding.
When Melissa Friesen, Bluffton’s theatre director, picked this production, she thought of several reasons why she thought it was a good fit. The story of Anne and her family is an important part of history, she said. Friesen said this story is powerful and chose it to show that power on stage. The production narrows the big picture of the Holocaust terror and horror to a small lens looking in, she said.
“Margot [Anne’s sister] is the opposite of me,” said Adrianny Ruiz Suarez sophomore Pre Art Therapy major. “She is calm, she never loses her temper, she is very supportive of her sister, she bottles up negative emotions, she is very studious and focuses on her schoolwork and she loves to read.”
One key element in the play is tension as there is a lot of it between the two families shown and the characters in general. The children in both families are teens and they want privacy but there isn’t much in their living conditions. Mr. van Daan and Otto Frank are business partners, which is how they know each other. This is most likely part of the reason they are in the same living quarters; they aren’t entirely strangers.
“I have never directed this play before,” Friesen said. “I always look for great, theatrical, powerful, interesting plays that are going to challenge me, the students and the audiences but also something we can do well.”
Friesen did some research to figure out how to have the set arranged as closely to the real house as she could. She read the book to help picture everything in her head, as well as borrowing a book from the university’s President Jane Wood that had pictures of the actual house and attic in it.
Tickets are available now on the Hometown Fan app through the App Store or Google Play. Look up the university and look for the play, then use the code Tickets2022. The price is free for Bluffton University students and is at discounted price for Bluffton faculty and staff.
