For Brenna Patzer, theatre has always played an important role in her life. Many JC students have heard her singing her way through multiple productions on the stage. Now, students will be able to see her in a different way: off the stage.

“For my senior project, I am directing and producing a production of the play version of The Diary of Anne Frank,” Brenna said. “It’s a pretty small cast, but it’s all JC students, along with most of our set and tech crew.”

The Diary of Anne Frank is based off of the best-selling book and is centered around the first part of the Holocaust in Amsterdam when Anne Frank, a young Jewish girl, and her family are forced into hiding.

The show will be completely student-produced, including the set and there will be no music.

“It’s pretty different from what we’ve done here since it’s not a musical, and it’s all dialogue,” Brenna said. “I think that the material within the show is so moving that it is sustainable and is enough for a full-length show.”

“We had Lessons of the Shoah last year, which sparked my interest in producing Anne Frank for my Senior Project,” Brenna said. “One of the stations we went to was a man from the Chesapeake Theatre Company, and he brought the play [with him] and called students up to read parts from it. I knew the story well, and I knew I wanted to put on a production for my Senior Project.”

“I wanted to do something that was not only fun for the cast but also impactful for the community,” she said. “[When I went to Lessons of the Shoah], that was when I got the exact idea that I wanted to do this play for my show. I think the culture and history is so rich and so deep that it should be shared because a lot of the themes within the show are still common within today’s society.

However, producing Anne Frank is not all for fun for Brenna.

“I want to go into acting and possibly directing and producing in the future, and it’s what I’m majoring in at college. I’d like to gain experience as a director and not just a performer. I want to make sure I’m able to take on that role and experience a different side of theatre.”

“With my project, I just really want to re-emphasize how devastating this event was within history and bring it to their attention,” Brenna said. “Like I said, it’s sadly still relevant, and I want to spread awareness to it so, hopefully, something like that will never happen again.”
 The Diary of Anne Frank will run from January 25-26 at JC. The show will have free admission.