• Otto Frank — The character is in his 50s though he could be played by a younger or older actor. He was an accomplished businessman, cultured and well educated. He is the glue and stabilizing factor that holds the group together during the years spent in the secret annex. He is strong but kind and is capable of great compassion and hope. However, he is a practical man who understands his times and makes the best of his situation.
• Edith Frank — Born Edith Hollander in the German town of Aachen near the Belgium border. Comfortable middle class background and accustom to a life of ease with most house work done by servants. Married in 1925 to a husband 11 years her senior. Two daughters: Margot born 1926 and Ann born 1929. In the secret annex she was obliged to cook, wash, clean and live in crowed quarters without her usual privacy. She is generally quiet and while she has a good relationship with Margot does not with Anne. After her arrest she became virtually mute and after her daughters were sent on to Belsen concentration camp her mind became unhinged. She died largely of self imposed starvation 1/6/45 ten days before the SS guards fled from the camp.
• Margot Frank — (age 17) Quiet, obedient child who took care of her things and was considered the more beautiful and intelligent of the two sisters leading to Anne’s resentment. During the two years in the annex the sisters grew close and learned to be more patient with one another eventually becoming close friends. She became ill with typhus at the Belsen concentration camp and died in March 1945.
• Anne Frank — Born June 12, 1929 three years after her sister Margot. She is 13 when the story opens. As a child she was bright and lively but not considered by her parents and their friends to be as intelligent and beautiful as Margot which is a source of resentment for her. She is immensely gifted as a writer and a person of great sensitivity. She is constantly irritated by the confinement in close quarter with people she dislikes which also magnifies the ambivalence she feels toward her parents and sister. She is an adolescent forced to function in an adult world and has an intensity of emotion only modulated by the situation in which she finds herself. She experiences her first infatuation with a boy (Peter) and the awkwardness of trying to understand her feelings while having to live in the same space with him. She is very inquisitive as to things that surround her and to her own evolving emotions. Her response to being discovered is a sense of liberation for she loved the outdoors as a child and has been deprived of any sense of it for two years.
• Mr. Van Daan — A business associate of Otto Frank. Highly intelligent and well-bred but extremely nervous. He was dominated by his wife.
• Mrs. Van Daan — A very uncomplicated person who was anxious and cheerful at the same time. Ann’s account of her is generally unflattering and intolerant. She is not a stoical person who shines in adversity. She often argued with her husband.
• Peter Van Daan — (15 yr. old) a simple, lovable boy whom Anne would tease for his slow, methodical ways. Peter was a quiet, handsome boy with a forest of brown curls and blue-gray eyes. From her diary it is clear that Anne loved him or at least the dream of love if not the boy himself. He often retreats to his own space to think and uses his pet cat much as Anne uses her diary – to confide in and find solace.
• Mr. Dussel — An elderly dentist who joined the group in November 1942. His wife was a catholic and did not join him thinking he had escaped the country. Life in the confined quarters of the annex was not easy for him and Anne describes him with great severity “having had to share one small room with a somewhat pedantic, older man”
• Mr. Kraler — A business associate of Mr.Frank who took over running both Mr. Frank’s and Mr. Van Daan’s businesses when Jews were no longer allowed to own them. He is about 10 years younger than Mr. Frank. He was instrumental in helping set up the Annex as well as bringing food, news of the outside world and hope. He tried to distract the Nazi so they would not find the hidden staircase behind the bookcase.
• Miep Gies — an intelligent young woman who rejected the opportunity to become a German citizen was married in July 1941. Her husband Henk worked in the Dutch underground resistance organization helping Jews and opponents of the Nazis hide from their oppressors. She was hired by Mr. Frank in 1933 and along with Mr. Kraler helped prepare and supply the secret annex. She also was a source of inspiration and frequently brought little gifts and surprises on birthdays and festivals, wild flowers and did her best to make the situation of the group in hiding a little more tolerable.

The Diary of Ann Frank is the account of an ordinary girl, growing up and eventually dying in extraordinary times. It is amusing, enlightening and often moving while simultaneously documenting the vividly terrifying life of Jews caught up in the hatred of the Nazis and their collaborators. The story explores multiple themes including Ann’s coming of age, virtue and her search for identity; duty to one’s country, one’s friends and to fellow “secret annex” residents; suffering as endured by those in the annex and those left outside; and war and anti-Semitism as they relate to Jewish consciousness.

The play in two acts covers the period June 12, 1942 to August 1, 1944. The set does not change other than its internal dressing and lighting. It is a tight space for eight individuals to spend two years hiding with the constant fear of discovery, limited food and no place to escape from others, their feelings or their own fears. The quality of the production will be strengthen by actors and actresses who are prepared to research and understand their characters to the level that they can make them live again on the stage.