New Play THE DIARY Begins Performances at Theater for the New City in January

"The Diary," a new play written by Claude Solnik and directed by Deborah Rupy starring Charles E. Gerber as Otto and Eva Gozé as Anne Frank , debuts at Theater for the New City, 155 First Ave., for a run Jan. 10-25.

When Otto Frank returned after World War II, he found none of his immediate family had made it through the Holocaust. Then he saw his daughter Anne's diary and she spoke to him - and later to the world.

That moment marked the end of a tragic story and the beginning of a second, largely untold story and struggle now presented in a new play.

While many know Anne Frank's story, few know the story of how that book was brought to the light of day and global publication. The second struggle, to make Anne Frank heard, faced challenges from skepticism to sexism, a desire to forget the Holocaust or simply to focus on the horrors in the camps.

Somehow, Anne Frank's voice, after a series of decisions and difficulties, made it into the psyche of so many people today, as her diary was published and translated around the world.

Charles E. Gerber, whose career spans Broadway, TV and film, portrays Otto Frank, Anne's father, appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association. Eva Gozé, a Dutch actress who grew up not far from where Anne Frank wrote the diary, plays Anne as part of a cast of around a dozen.

"Anne Frank's diary is a well-known book," said Solnik, who wrote the play, developed through readings at the Dramatists Guild Foundation and TNC. "But the story of how the diary was published and became known is another narrative. It's about passion, persistence, a father, a daughter, and editors, often women, who embraced a book that many others dismissed."

Anne Frank wrote her thoughts in a diary starting in 1942 and continuing between ages 13 and 15. Otto Frank's decision as to whether to seek publication and then to publish it proved complex and challenging.

Gerber described the play as showing a "father's indomitable courage and determination" to preserve the thoughts of "Anne Frank and her extraordinary perspective of humanity at so young an age" so that those thoughts, as well as the legacy of some others in the Annex, would not be "lost to the ages."

He was cast and took the role of Otto Frank in this project after winning the 2025 Best Actor Award from the Burbank International Film Festival (Calif.) and AMT International Film Festival (NY) for a short film titled A King's Curtain.

Broadway credits include Oh! Calcutta! and Hamlet as well as Broadway national tours of Torch Strong Trilogy and Disney's Beauty and the Beast.

"Otto Frank met his daughter again, a second time, when he read the diary," Solnik said. "And he learned so much about, and even from, her. So many others have got to know Anne Frank as an author since then."

Anne Frank's work initially was met with skepticism by a male-dominated publishing industry, published in the Netherlands, then other nations and the United Stats, reaching 70 languages.

Secretaries practically fought over working on the project, when Judith Jones, a well known editor, embraced Anne as an author in the United States. "Those who arrested her ignored what she had written," Solnik said, "but her words continue to echo today."