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September 13 – October 23, 2022
(Opening night: Sunday, September 18, 2022)
Sheryl and Harvey White Theatre
Conrad Prebys Theatre Center
World premiere
By Nathan Englander
Directed by Barry Edelstein
Pulitzer Prize finalist Nathan Englander and director Barry Edelstein wowed Globe audiences with The Twenty-Seventh Man, and now they team up again for this world premiere of a modern-day comedy of friendship. What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is Englander’s adaptation of his award-winning short story about two women, inseparable in high school, whose adult lives have taken them to opposite ends of the earth, and to wildly different experiences of culture, religion, and family. When they reunite, their bond is tested by the distance that has grown between them… and also by their husbands, who don’t exactly see eye to eye. Englander’s distinctive voice—hilarious, outrageous, and emotional—gives us a uniquely funny and smart exploration of how we see ourselves and how our friends see us.
Contains strong language. This production contains the smoking of herbal cigarettes and strobe effects.
Running time: One hour and 40 minutes. There is no intermission.
What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is supported by production sponsors Elaine and Dave Darwin, Edelman, Sheila and Jeffrey Lipinsky, Paula and Brian Powers, Jean and Gary Shekhter, Karen and Stuart Tanz, the Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director Fund, and Vicki and Carl Zeiger as well as artist sponsors Sandra and Arthur Levinson (for playwright Nathan Englander). What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is the 2020 winner of The Blanche and Irving Laurie Theatre Visions Fund and is the recipient of an Edgerton Foundation New Play Award.
Nathan Englander (Playwright) Theatre: The Twenty-Seventh Man (The Public, 2012, The Old Globe, 2015). Books: kaddish.com, Dinner at the Center of the Earth, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, The Ministry of Special Cases, For the Relief of Unbearable Urges (all from Knopf). Selected honors: Guggenheim Fellowship, PEN/Malamud Award, Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award, Pulitzer Prize finalist, Premio Fernanda Pivano, Berlin Prize. Teaching: Distinguished Writer in Residence (New York University). @nenglander on Instagram.
Barry Edelstein (Director, Erna Finci Viterbi Artistic Director) is a stage director, producer, author, and educator. His Globe directing credits include The Winter’s Tale, Othello, The Twenty-Seventh Man, the world premiere of Rain, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Hamlet, the world premiere of The Wanderers, the American premiere of Life After, Romeo and Juliet, and, during the pandemic, Hamlet: On the Radio. He also directed All’s Well That Ends Well as the inaugural production of the Globe for All community tour, and he oversees the Globe’s Classical Directing Fellowship program. In addition to his recent Globe credits, he directed The Tempest with the Los Angeles Philharmonic at Walt Disney Concert Hall in 2018, and he will next direct The Wanderers Off Broadway with Roundabout Theatre Company in 2023. As Director of the Shakespeare Initiative at The Public Theater (2008–2012), Edelstein oversaw all of the company’s Shakespearean productions as well as its educational, community outreach, and artist-training programs. At The Public, he staged the world premiere of The Twenty-Seventh Man, Julius Caesar, The Merchant of Venice, Timon of Athens, and Steve Martin’s WASP and Other Plays. He was also Associate Producer of The Public’s Broadway production of The Merchant of Venice starring Al Pacino. From 1998 to 2003 he was Artistic Director of Classic Stage Company. His book Thinking Shakespeare is the standard text on American Shakespearean acting. He is also the author of Bardisms: Shakespeare for All Occasions. He is a graduate of Tufts University and the University of Oxford, where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar.
Paul Tate dePoo III (Scenic Design) Scenic, projection, production designer based in New York. The Old Globe: debut. Recent/selected credits: production designer for Usher’s Las Vegas residency; scenic and projection resident designer for Broadway Center Stage series (The Kennedy Center); Helen Hayes Award recipient for Grand Hotel (Signature Theatre); designer of the world’s largest opera Turandot (Vienna, 2021); creative director for the digital production of The Great Work Begins: Scenes from Angels In America, benefitting amfAR’s Fund to Fight COVID-19 (The New York Times top 10 productions of 2020). pauldepoo.com.
Katherine Roth (Costume Design) The Old Globe: Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Rain, The Twenty-Seventh Man, Othello, The Rainmaker, Dracula, Rough Crossing (San Diego Theatre Critics Circle Award). Broadway: Come Fly Away. New York: Alliance Theatre, Encore Theatre at Wynn Las Vegas, People’s Light, Signature Theatre, Williamstown Theatre Festival, Vineyard, TFANA, Cherry Lane, Women’s Project, Primary Stages, INTAR, Bat Theatre Company, Rattlestick Playwrights Theater. Regional: California Shakespeare Theater (San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle Award), Dallas Theater Center (Leon Rabin Award), many more. Film/television: two Daytime Emmy Awards for Costume Design for “All My Children.”
Russell H. Champa (Lighting Design) The Old Globe: The Imaginary Invalid, The Twenty-Seventh Man, Rain, The Winter’s Tale, Back Back Back, The Four of Us. Recent: Romeo y Juliet (Cal Shakes), Fefu and Her Friends (ACT), Wintertime (Berkeley Rep), About Alice (TFANA), Everest (Kansas City Opera), Thresh|Hold (Pilobolus). Broadway: China Doll (Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre), In The Next Room, or the vibrator play (Lyceum Theatre/Lincoln Center Theater), Julia Sweeney’s God Said “Ha!” (Lyceum Theatre). New York: Playwrights Horizons, Lincoln Center Theater, The Public, Second Stage, Manhattan Theatre Club, MCC, Julliard, New York Stage and Film. Regional: Steppenwolf, The Wilma, Trinity Rep, Mark Taper Forum, The Kennedy Center.
Lindsay Jones (Original Music and Sound Design) Broadway: Slave Play (Tony nominations for Best Original Score, Best Sound Design of a Play), The Nap, Bronx Bombers, A Time to Kill. Off Broadway: Privacy (Public Theater), Bootycandy (Playwrights Horizons), Feeding the Dragon (Primary Stages), many others. Regional: Guthrie, Center Stage, ACT, Hartford Stage, Alliance, Goodman, Arena Stage, Chicago Shakespeare, Steppenwolf, many others. International: Stratford Festival (Canada), Royal Shakespeare Company (England), many others. Audio dramas: Marvel, Audible, Next Chapter Podcasts, award-winning “The Imagine Neighborhood.” Film/television scoring: HBO Films’s A Note of Triumph (2006 Academy Award for Best Documentary, Short Subjects). Other: Co-Chair of Theatrical Sound Designers and Composers Association (TSDCA).
lindsayjones.com.
Caparelliotis Casting (Casting) The Old Globe: Dial M for Murder, Mala, Shutter Sisters, Hurricane Diane, Noura, They Promised Her the Moon, Tiny Beautiful Things, Barefoot in the Park, The Wanderers, Picasso at the Lapin Agile, Skeleton Crew. Select Broadway: Macbeth, The Minutes, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, King Lear, Hillary and Clinton, Ink, The Waverly Gallery, The Boys in the Band, Three Tall Women, Meteor Shower, A Doll’s House Part 2, Jitney, The Glass Menagerie, Blackbird, Fish in the Dark, Disgraced, Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo. Additional theatre: MTC, Signature, Atlantic, McCarter, Goodman, Berkeley Rep. Television: “New Amsterdam” (NBC), “American Odyssey” (NBC).
Alyssa Escalante (Production Stage Manager) The Old Globe: debut. Regional: A Wicked Soul in Cherry Hill (Geffen Playhouse), Spamilton (Musical Theatre West), All’s Well That Ends Well (A Noise Within), The Bacchae (Guthrie), Lizastrata, The Bacchae, Haunted House Party, Mojada, A Medea in Los Angeles (Getty Villa), Hold These Truths (San Diego Repertory), Fireflies, M Butterfly, Photograph 51, Culture Clash (Still) in America (South Coast Repertory), A Streetcar Named Desire, Happy Days, RII (Boston Court Pasadena), Criers for Hire (East West Players). Touring: Hamilton (Eliza Tour). Education: Occidental College.
