Slam Frank: A New Musical — Page 2

Jordan Catalano said: "Saw this today and it’s just f*cking brilliant. It just succeeds on almost every level. It’s still being worked on apparently and there’s a few things that can be trimmed down and one or two parts maybe even cut but that’s justnitpicking with something this smart."

Reviews like this encourage me. My impression was that it was going to skewer the people who thought Anne Frank had too much "white privilege" as a Dutch Jew in the 1940s, but to the point that it would be hard to sit through listening to the skewering (richly deserved) and also having to listen to the people being skewered. Ie, clever but unpleasant. 

But i keep hearing it goes deeper and smarter than that so

"‘Slam Frank,’ a Daring Satire, and ‘Crooked Cross’ Demand Our Attention"

Gift link NYT review (Laura Collins-Hughes) alongside review of Mint's "Crooked Cross."

Excerpt:

“Slam Frank” is a little baggy, a bit bombastic and reliant, to an extent that may be unwise, on the audience’s presumption of its creators’ good faith. It is not an anti-diversity show, for example, but it could be taken that way. Still, it builds a very strong case about the dehumanizing danger of seeking out differences rather than similarities, and what a deadening mistake it is to prioritize rigidity over complexity in storytelling.

Updated On: 10/27/25 at 05:12 AM

The New Yorker: