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January 23, 2009
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Produced by Mary Anne Stevens and directed by Coco Morrison, the show features actors familiar to Canyon Lake Community Theatre audiences as well as some new faces drawn from Temescal Canyon High School’s talented Spotlight Players.
Noel Lemkemby, a 17 year-old senior at TCHS, will portray the character of Anne, a Jewish girl born in the city of Frankfurt am Main in Weimar, Germany, whose diary is the basis for this story.
Anne and her family moved to Amsterdam in 1933 after the Nazis gained power in Germany; they were trapped by the occupation of the Netherlands, which began in 1940. As persecutions against the Jewish population increased, the family went into hiding in July 1942 in hidden rooms in her father Otto Frank’s office building. After two years, the group was betrayed and transported to concentration camps. Seven months after her arrest, Anne Frank died of typhus in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp within days of the death of her sister, Margot Frank.
Anne’s father Otto, the only survivor of the group, returned to Amsterdam after the war to find that her diary had been saved; his efforts led to its publication in 1947. The diary chronicles her life from June 12, 1942 until August 1,1944.
Noel, who formerly played Stella in “The Uninvited,” says that she wanted to play Anne because of the strength and honesty her young character possessed. “Anne was an inspiration in how she carried herself with such pride. She never regretted who she was,” says Noel.
Kayla Parker, a TCHS sophomore, will portray Anne’s older sister Margot. Kayla is a veteran to the stage and film industry. Some of her television credits include an episode of “Unsolved Mysteries” and commercials for Campbell’s soup and Disney. Her recent theatrical credits include Miss Holloway in “The Uninvited,” Bloody Mary in “South Pacific,” Alice in “Alice in Wonderland” and more.
Her character, Margot Betti Frank, attended the Ludwig-Richter School in Frankfurt-am-Main until the appointment of Adolf Hitler to the position of Chancellor in Germany brought an increase of anti-Jewish measures, among which was the expulsion of Jewish schoolchildren from non-denominational schools. In response to the rising tide of anti-Semitism, the family decided to follow the 63,000 other Jews who had left Germany and immigrate to the Netherlands. Margot became involved in the Jewish community and took Hebrew classes, attended synagogue and joined a Dutch Zionist club for young people who wanted to immigrate to Land of Israel in order to found a Jewish state, where, according to Anne, she wished to become a midwife.
After Margot received a notice to report to a labor camp, she and her family went into hiding at her father’s office building. They later were joined by four other Jewish refugees and remained hidden for two years, until they were betrayed in August 1944. Along with the other occupants of the hiding place, Margot Frank was arrested by the Gestapo and detained and imprisoned for three days before being taken by train to the Dutch transit camp of Westerbork.
As the Frank family had failed to respond to Margot’s call-up notice in 1942, and had been discovered in hiding, they (along with Fritz Pfeffer and the van Pels family) were declared criminals by the camp’s officials and sentenced to hard labor in the battery dismantling plant. They remained here until they were selected for Westerbork’s last deportation to Auschwitz.
Margot and Anne were transferred to Bergen-Belsen where both contracted typhus in the winter of 1944. Margot Frank died shortly before Anne and they were buried together in one of the camp’s mass graves. A diary kept by Margot Frank during her time in hiding is mentioned by Anne in her writings but has never been found.
“My personality is the opposite of Margot’s,” says Kayla. “Portraying her is a challenge and honor. When I think of the life, problems and trials, I hope I can bring justice to her character.”
Tickets are $15 for preferred seating, $12 for open seating and $10 for students and seniors; a previous dinner option has been cancelled. Tickets can be obtained by calling Sue Collins at 244-9675 or online at www.CLCTPA.org.
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