The Diary of Anne Frank
Written by Frances Goodrich and Albert Hackett
Sound Designer: Jeremiah Tuner
Director: Sanaz Ghajar
Scenic/Projection Designer: David Tennet
Lighting Designer: C. Touchet
Costume Designer: Emma Arends
Stage Manager: Kayla Basco
Louisiana State University School of Theatre
2018-2019 Season
Artistic Direction
The show revolves around the story of Anne Frank, and her families continuous struggle hiding from the Nazis during World War II. For this production, I built the show around the theme of “the sins of our past can be reflected on the sins of the present." Although this is a historical piece that tells the story of a travesty long ago, those same travesties have imbedded themselves into our present day. I also designed around the motif of using the contrast of silence and noise to reflect the never-ending danger the Frank family was In.
Nightmare Sequence
Early in the show the script calls for a speech given by Adolf Hitler. I built this sound cue around the motif that the transition cues are reoccurring nightmares Anne was experiencing. I used chants screamed by white supremacist during the 2017 Unite the Right rally as a rhythmic bed underneath. The rhythmic nature of the chants added texture to the Hitler speech, all the while still giving a pocket for the speech to be experienced by the audience and not drowned out. The use of the white supremacist chants underscoring Hitler's speech represented that the sins of the past being reflected in the sins of the present.
Photo credit: LSU School of Theatre
War Planes
Photo credit: LSU School of Theatre
This cue revolved around the motif of silence vs noise representing the danger the Frank family experienced daily. I used planes of the era and processed them to be loud and rumble in the theatre to sound both intimidating and as historically accurate as possible. This was used as a contrast to the silence of the scene before to jolt the audience, and represent the idea that Anne and her family had to be on guard at all times because danger was ever present.
Trains & Screams
At the end of the show, Anne and her family are captured by Nazi officers. I buit a sound cue that not only represented her, and her family's, journey to the concentration camp, but also the lost souls of the holocaust.
Photo credit: LSU School of Theatre