The story of “The Diary of a Young Girl,” by Anne Frank, gets lifted off the pages to shine the limelight on monumental moments  in the newest LHS dramatic production.

  The play will be presented in the Little Theater on February 18, 19 and the 20. Tickets are five dollars for children and seniors, 10 dollars for adults and can be bought at the door or online here.

   The play is closely correlated to the true story of Anne Frank.

   “It’s really just like it because it comes directly from her diary and this is the new version of it,” director Don Johnson said. “It’s an adaptation that is a little more than what the first one was, it is basically the same, but they’ve added and mixed things around.”

   The production follows the historic retelling of Anne Frank’s story of the Holocaust and the hardships she and her family faced.

   “It’s about the Frank family and then the Van Daans, who they were staying with and they were in their secret annex for two and a half years while the war was going on,” freshman Sarah Keenan said. “It’s about their relationships, how they grow, how they live through this time and hiding from the Nazis.”

   The actors, directors and crew members spend countless after school hours perfecting every single line, look, and emotion into the show.

   “Whenever you are in a play or musical you really need to time manage yourself and you have to make sure you have enough time for other clubs and other school work,” freshman Macey Kern said. “It has kind of limited how much time you have on homework and your social life.”

   Managing time for schoolwork and other extracurricular activities is always challenging for the performers and crew members in a production as this production’s actors can attest to.

   “I am super busy, rehearsals go to 5:30 after school, from 3:15 to 5:30,” senior Madison Cantwell said.“I have church right after that so I have very little time to fit in homework, so I’m usually up until like midnight doing homework every night and then getting up at six for school.”    

   Expectations run high for the show to break a new state record because of the long-lasting history of winning awards as evident by the abundance of trophies outside the Little Theater.

   “This is my second show here at the high school. It’s a lot more laid back, but we still have more pressure on us than we had in the musical,” freshman Kelsey Pierce said. “We’ve won state two years in a row, so there’s a lot more pressure on us to be the first school in Missouri to win state three years in a row for our one act. We block what we need to and then we have the choice and freedom to do what we want for the rest of the time.”

   Since the story took place during the 1940s, the actors are not only learning  their blocking and stage presence, but also the depth of their characters in the context of the time period.

   “Most students of their age could not really relate to what these characters are going through, so we have to find some type of relationship or some type of experience that they’ve had that they can kind of correlate to,” Johnson said.

   The dark subject matter and emotional toll of the characters’ lives has deeply affected the actors in this production.

   “Mainly it kind of takes an emotional toll on me personally,” Cantwell said. “Kenzie Greenwood, who plays Mrs. Van Daan, and I were discussing that at the very end of the show we get caught by the Nazis and they’re like throwing us across the room and holding guns to us it’s just so surreal and scary, so it’s kind of emotional for us to go through that every single day.”

   Sarah Keenan believes there are also upsides to playing Anne Frank in the production.

   “It’s pretty fun, it’s not a really dark play most of the time besides what’s going on. It’s fun to play because she’s kind of rebellious and kind of spunky,” Keenan said.

   Members in the production are getting pushed out of their usual comfort zone and exploring different genres.

   “The best thing is that it gives us the opportunity to teach kids about a piece of history they may not be aware of and also lets them be part of a different time period that they wouldn’t experience and probably wouldn’t even gravitate to,” Johnson said.

   Johnson thinks the actors are benefitting immensely from learning such a significant part of history.

   “I don’t think that I’ve ever really done a show that’s nonfiction before and this is a nonfiction show,” Cantwell said. “The Holocaust is such an important event in our history. I don’t think I’ve ever done anything this monumental before.”