Slam Frank, which reimagines her story through an “intersectional, multiethnic, genderqueer, Afro-Latin hip-hop lens,” posted the recording in advance of the play’s off-Broadway return
When Slam Frank opened last September at the Asylum, a 150-seat off-Broadway performance space in Manhattan, it had no marketing budget and no marquee actors in its cast. What it did have was an out-there, provocative storyline — a progressive theater troupe presents Anne Frank as a pansexual Latina with a Black mother, a neurodivergent gay father, an ultra-orthodox Jewish sister, and a gender-fluid love interest as they hide from the Nazis — and a vibrant hip-hop-meets-pop songbook studded with Broadway Easter eggs.
Beginning today, fans of the show, along with the just plain curious, can download a recording of the original cast performing tunes such as “Yeast of Edith,” “Non-Binary,” and “Herstory” exclusively on the Slam Frank website for $20 before the musical reopens at the Orpheum Theatre, a 330-plus-seat venue in Manhattan’s East Village. (Previews begin Sept. 17; opening night is Oct. 4.)
Andrew Fox, who wrote Slam Frank’s music and lyrics, says he was influenced by a wide range of artists, including pop and rap stars Kanye West, Taylor Swift, and Eminem, and vaunted Broadway composers and lyricists Stephen Sondheim and Lin-Manuel Miranda.
