When Slam Frank opened last September at the Asylum, a 150-seat off-Broadway performance space in Manhattan’s Hell’s Kitchen district, 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.
“Musical theater is the last truly punk-rock revolutionary art form,” Fox tells Rolling Stone. “If you want to fight for justice, the best thing you can do is purchase our cast recording.”
Fox, a “master troll” per The New York Times, also authors the play’s often-incendiary social media posts. While Slam Frank‘s politics aren’t always clear, he has suggested that his main target is what he sees as the excesses of the identity-politics era. And when commenters who don’t get the satire (or just don’t like it) express genuine outrage, Fox answers with deadpan indignance. In response to one Instagram commenter who asked why he didn’t cast “a Jewish person to play a Jewish role” (“Anita Franco” is portrayed by nonbinary actor Olivia Bernábe), Fox, who is Jewish, posted a video calling the commenter a “racist,” adding, “I finally created an opportunity for LatinX girlies to feel seen, to feel included, to feel like they’re part of the Holocaust, and you’re just trying to take them away from that.”
Retorts like that helped spur a Change.org petition to stop the play’s opening (calling it a “A Disrespect to Jewish History”) — and also helped sell out the show’s entire developmental run, which ended Dec. 28. The musical’s Instagram account is approaching 100,000 followers, while the petition stalled out at 787 signatures.
Frank, of course, is best known as the author of a diary depicting her family’s life while hiding from the Nazis in an Amsterdam attic. Published after her death at age 15 in a concentration camp, the diary became a classic of Holocaust literature and remains widely read. The idea for Slam Frank began after Fox saw a viral 2022 Twitter thread that asked, in all apparent seriousness, whether Frank ever acknowledged her “white privilege.” The book, by co-creator Joel Sinensky, who is also Jewish, imagines what might happen if a progressive theater company adapted Frank’s life story with that question in mind.
In February, the musical’s producers set up a GoFundMe page to raise $30,000 for the cast recording. A rep for the show says that goal was met within 24 hours, and over the next month, a total of 827 backers boosted the total to $60,000.
Fox and Mikhail Pivovarov produced the 14-track album (with additional production by Ricky Sour on the song “Rewrite My Diary”), and recorded it at Black Rock Sound, Carriage House Studios, Stamford Recording, and Stan Mitchell’s Attic. Fox also arranged and orchestrated the album, while Pivovarov handled engineering, mixing, and mastering. Additional engineering and editing support came from Melissa Rampton and Stanley Mitchell. Charlotte Daniels provided additional music preparation, and Alex Harrington served as music director for the developmental production.
The download available on the site is an MP3, but a WAV file is available upon request by emailing proof of purchase to [email protected]. A vinyl version will be available at the Orpheum during the show’s run.
