Evening Keynote: Roger Guenveur Smith and Marc Anthony Thompson

Obie Award-winning collaborators Roger Guenveur Smith and Marc Anthony Thompson present a reading of new work inspired by the saga of Otto Frank, father of diarist Anne Frank. The only member of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust, Otto  Frank became the steward of his daughter’s legacy, facilitating the adaptation of her work for radio, stage, and screen. He was not without detractors, who accused him of exploiting his family’s tragedy, and denied the authenticity of the Diary, even as they denied the Holocaust itself.

In this reading, Smith and Thompson navigate this negotiation of loss and the challenge of service to both the living and the dead.

A brief conversation with the artists will follow the reading.