Anne Frank

City Repertory Theatre presents an all-star reading of Anne Frank, the controversial 1955 theatrical adaptation of the famous story by acclaimed novelist and playwright Meyer Levin that sparked a flurry of litigation when its author charged the Broadway producers and authors of the Pulitzer Prize-winning Diary Of Anne Frank with plagiarism.

In the early 1950s, novelist Meyer Levin was instrumental in getting Anne Frank: Diary Of A Young Girl published in the U.S. where it became an instant best-seller. In return for his work promoting the book, Anne Frank’s father Otto awarded Levin the right to create a stage adaptation of the story. Levin’s script was summarily rejected by the powerful Broadway producers attached to the project (among them Kermit Bloomgarden and Lillian Hellman) in favor of a new script penned by Hollywood screenwriters Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett that went on to win the Pulitzer Prize for Drama. Levin felt that this new Broadway version stole elements from his script and saw the rejection of his play as an extension of the Stalinist attack on Jewish culture. Outraged that even Anne Frank could be censored, he took the producers to court and began an agonizing, prolonged legal struggle that dragged on for many years.