S2 Ep1962: ARTS ALIVE! St. Pete Catalyst's Bill DeYoung: And Then They Came For Me @freeFALL Theater

In this episode of ARTS ALIVE!, Bill DeYoung chats with actors Noa Friedman and Cameron Kubly for a discussion of the new freeFall Theatre production, And Then They Came For Me: The World of Anne Frank. James Still’s historical play blends actual testimony from Holocaust survivors Eva Geiringer Schloss and Helmuth “Ed” Silverberg, who are seen on video as part of the stage set, with live re-enactments of their words and memories.

Friedman, Kubly and the other four members of the cast take the audience to Germany, Austria, Belgium and Holland in the 1930s and ‘40s, as the Nazis ran roughshod through Europe and, over the course of what became World War II, murdered six million Jews. Silverberg recalls that he was 13-year-old Anne Frank’s 16-year-old boyfriend nicknamed “Hello” (as referenced in her diary). Schloss and her mother went into hiding in Amsterdam, just like their friends the Frank family. Like the Franks, they were betrayed and sent to concentration camps.

Director Eric Davis has created a seamless, eminently watchable production that, in the course of its 65 fast-moving minutes, shines a bright light on the humanity, as opposed to the brutality, of those terrible times.

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