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"Anne Frank, a Musical" interview with director & producer David Serero on Musical Theater Radio (2023), opening on October 11th, 2023, Off-Broadway.
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00:00 Welcome back to another episode of Be Our Guest here on Musical Theatre Radio.
00:03 I am your host, as always, Jean-Paul Jovanoff.
00:06 If you are looking for a musical to see, today's episode is for you.
00:11 If you're in New York City between October 11th and November 5th,
00:15 you'll want to check out the off-Broadway production of Anne Frank,
00:18 a musical at the Actors Temple Theatre.
00:21 Today is with great pleasure that I welcome the producer and director
00:25 and a wonderful human being to the show.
00:28 Let's welcome David Serrero to the program.
00:31 David, hello again.
00:34 Hello, my dear Jean-Paul.
00:35 You know, I don't know how long I'm going to live,
00:38 but I would love you to write my eulogy, you know,
00:41 because that was such a beautiful and kind introduction.
00:46 You forgot to say gorgeous also, but that's okay.
00:49 I don't want your ego to get too big.
00:51 You know, I've got to hold it back a little bit.
00:55 You're the best, my dear friend. It's so good to see you.
00:58 Thank you for the opportunity to be on your wonderful show.
01:01 You know how much I appreciate you, I love you,
01:03 and how much I'm a huge fan of your radio
01:07 and how much we need your radio.
01:09 It's the only radio about musical theatre.
01:11 So thank you, thank you, thank you for having me.
01:14 It really means the world. Thank you.
01:16 Now my ego is getting too big.
01:17 My head is swelling outside of the Zoom box.
01:21 So for those of you who don't know
01:23 or haven't listened to your past interviews on here,
01:26 I always ask for a 30-second bio.
01:28 So David, who are you in 30 seconds?
01:31 30 seconds.
01:32 Well, I was born on a Wednesday, April 22nd, 1991.
01:36 It was 6.20 p.m.
01:38 Then right away I started to speak several languages
01:41 and I got my PhD the next day.
01:44 (laughing)
01:46 No, no, but you know, I'm an opera singer,
01:50 I'm an actor, director, producer, and I do movies.
01:54 I direct movies, I produce movies.
01:56 I love the human adventure of any experiences.
02:00 So I diversify a little bit myself,
02:03 but really my biggest pride and joy is my career on stage
02:08 and now on the screen with the movies.
02:11 I'm to create these plays, opera, musicals,
02:15 but always with a very special touch,
02:17 with a special identity and color.
02:20 And that's really what makes me work every day.
02:23 And people like yourself who inspire me to be better
02:26 because when I have an opportunity to be on your show,
02:29 I know I have to give my best after
02:32 to deserve that opportunity.
02:33 So that's really the person I am.
02:37 Awesome, awesome.
02:38 Now, before we get into the newest project,
02:40 what have you been doing since your last project
02:43 we talked about, which was the Ten Commandments,
02:44 which I believe was in May of 2022?
02:46 That was in 2022.
02:48 Yeah.
02:49 So what did I do?
02:50 I had my movie that I did on the fashion designer,
02:53 Elie Tahari, which went massive.
02:56 Like I got a hundred,
02:58 more than a hundred film festival selection.
03:00 I won't, I don't know, maybe 40 awards about it.
03:04 And that movie led to many more movies.
03:08 And I have now 12 movies, which I signed in just a year.
03:13 And I was about to finish, I think six of them.
03:18 And some I'm still filming, some I'm already doing
03:23 the editing because I'm doing myself the editing.
03:25 Because for me, that's really the essence
03:27 of the filmmaking, you know, like the making of a movie.
03:30 A lot of concerts, a lot of shows.
03:32 I toured for the first time in October, 2022
03:36 in Latin America, played in Buenos Aires.
03:38 I came back another time, they re-invited me.
03:41 And very important in November, 2022,
03:45 I had the opening night gala
03:47 of the first national opera company of Morocco,
03:52 which I created.
03:53 I founded the first official, you know,
03:56 like with the government opera company of Morocco
03:59 in a country where have this generosity
04:02 and sharing and vocal culture also.
04:05 So people really, really loved it.
04:07 It was a massive, massive hit.
04:09 And we have a big season and played again in Morocco,
04:14 did a lot of shows, concerts, film a new series in Miami,
04:18 which is coming out soon.
04:20 And did another movie, which came out
04:22 in almost 400 movie theaters in France.
04:26 So it was really, really big.
04:28 Cast have on recordings.
04:30 And I mean, there's not a day that goes by
04:31 where I'm not working on the project
04:35 and trying to reschedule this, and Frank,
04:38 because originally we're supposed to open
04:41 the first day that there was the shutdown of the COVID.
04:45 So that was in March, 2020.
04:47 So finally I'm able to bring it
04:49 and it couldn't have been a better time.
04:51 So I'm very grateful.
04:53 - Well, then let's jump right into Anne Frank, a musical.
04:57 Tell us a little bit about the history of it.
05:00 Obviously it got stopped because of COVID.
05:03 So tell us a little bit about the history of the show.
05:06 - Yeah, absolutely.
05:07 Thank you, Jean-Paul.
05:08 It all started with my dear friend Jean-Pierre Hadidat,
05:12 who is the composer of that beautiful musical.
05:15 And he wrote gorgeous musicals in France,
05:18 "Madiba" by Nelson Mandela.
05:20 He wrote one recently that is a big hit in France,
05:23 "Josephine Baker," "Josephine Baker," the musical.
05:27 I saw the first musical, I think,
05:30 almost 15 years ago in Paris.
05:32 And he wanted me even at that time to do "Auto Frank."
05:36 And we were talking and just one day,
05:39 we in 2019, we're like,
05:43 "Hey, how about we bring it to New York?"
05:45 And I was like, "Oh yeah, of course."
05:47 And let's do it.
05:48 And we did it in 2019.
05:50 It was a massive success, sold out,
05:52 like really, really unbelievable.
05:54 And I kind of reshaped the show
05:57 with the American culture of musical theater,
06:01 giving it the vocal literature that I think it deserved
06:06 'cause it was sang a little bit differently in France.
06:08 So I wanted to give it really
06:10 a real American musical theater vocals/opera/oratorio/
06:15 all of that.
06:16 It was a big, big, big success,
06:18 despite what people were thinking,
06:20 or "Aunt Frank," a musical, really a musical about Aunt Frank?
06:23 Are you out of your mind?
06:25 But people didn't understand.
06:26 And of course, you know that a musical
06:29 doesn't have to be a happy story,
06:31 people dancing and doing tap dance.
06:34 It can also be a musical theater
06:37 where we tell a story through music and emotions.
06:40 And it was a massive success.
06:42 And then I said, "Okay, let's bring it
06:44 for more performances."
06:46 I knew that venue, the Actors Temple, off-Broadway also,
06:50 let's do it there.
06:51 And then COVID happened, almost died with COVID.
06:55 I pushed it maybe five or six times.
06:58 And at some point I was like,
06:59 "Okay, when there won't be masks anymore
07:02 and all that stuff, then maybe I bring it."
07:04 I was like, "Okay, 2023 now is a good time."
07:07 I did the 10 Commandments, the musical in 2022.
07:10 It happened perfectly for 2023 for "Aunt Frank."
07:13 And I have a phenomenal cast.
07:16 I couldn't have a dream for really a better cast.
07:20 Of course, 2019 I had a phenomenal cast,
07:23 but this cast really is really, really pretty
07:27 and really interesting.
07:28 And they really have the passion
07:31 to tell that story.
07:33 That's also what brings me the most.
07:36 And this new generation,
07:37 actors who are in their early 20s,
07:40 for some reasons, they connect way more
07:43 to their grandparents than I connected
07:46 with my grandparents at my age.
07:48 You know what I mean?
07:49 Like before we're like,
07:50 "Oh, I have to go see my grandparents."
07:53 I was not like that,
07:54 but I remember a lot of my friends at that time.
07:57 But now people are very proud to share the story
08:00 of their grandparents.
08:01 Like even you see sometimes on TikTok or whatever,
08:05 some girls in their early 20s talking to their grandma
08:08 and say, "Tell me how you were, how it was at that day.
08:12 How were you going out?"
08:14 How, you know, telling stories,
08:16 "Exchange," quote, unquote.
08:17 And I feel this new generations of the 20s,
08:21 they're really, really more into connecting that,
08:24 "Oh, my grandma was in Auschwitz in concentration camp."
08:29 Or, "My grandfather was a US veteran.
08:31 He fought during World War II.
08:33 So this story is very important for me," et cetera.
08:37 I see more of that connection today in between 2019,
08:41 when I did the first show, and today it's four years,
08:45 but it's really another world,
08:47 completely different world.
08:49 And I hope you come to see us, Madhya Jampol.
08:53 - I will be in New York, so I will get to see it.
08:55 - Oh, yes.
08:56 - I'm excited.
08:57 I'm so excited. - That's right.
08:59 But I do agree with you on that whole 20-year-olds
09:03 connecting more with their grandparents,
09:06 because to take it off in a slightly different direction,
09:09 but it is relevant,
09:10 I used to DJ a lot of weddings back in the early 2000s,
09:15 when the generation of music was so spread out.
09:19 But 10 years later, the generation,
09:22 the type of music everybody listened to
09:24 was almost the same.
09:25 You know, kids nowadays listen to the '60s and '70s
09:29 and '80s, where back in our day,
09:31 we didn't listen to the '30s and '40s and '50s.
09:34 (laughing)
09:35 There's such a, our grandparents didn't have necessarily
09:39 cars and TV and that sort of thing,
09:42 where 20-year-olds, their grandparents,
09:44 they grew up with TV and cars and early computers.
09:48 So it's so much easier to communicate with each other.
09:52 Their grandparents are on the iPad,
09:54 you know, talking to them.
09:56 - That's so true.
09:58 That's so true.
09:59 I mean, that's one of the things I regret,
10:02 is that I'm very close mentally,
10:05 I would say, to my grandfather on my father's side.
10:09 And I talk to my dad all the time, like,
10:11 "Tell me about him, I wanna know more of him."
10:14 And that's why I say, if you have your grandparents,
10:17 call them every day to tell them you love them,
10:19 and take pictures and video of them.
10:22 You make them so happy when you call them.
10:24 The fact that you keep videos of them that you can watch,
10:29 you know, when sadly they won't be there.
10:31 But it's true, it's more about connecting.
10:35 One thing I forgot to mention you, my dear Jean-Paul,
10:37 which I think is so relevant for the show,
10:39 if you allow me to say it.
10:41 In August 2022, I did a movie with Porsche, the cars.
10:46 You know, we filmed all across Europe,
10:49 and where I was driving my Porsche all across Europe.
10:52 It was an amazing trip for almost two months.
10:55 And the movie, I don't know when it's gonna come out.
10:57 I hope it's gonna come out in a couple of months, maybe.
10:59 I stopped at Auschwitz for many years,
11:03 even since I was a teenager.
11:05 I was like, I was offered with school and friends,
11:08 they were doing annual trips and all that.
11:11 And I was like, "I don't wanna go there."
11:12 People were like, "Why? It's your story."
11:15 I said, "Keep me away from it."
11:17 Because somehow in my mind,
11:19 I was hoping that maybe, I didn't wanna face the truth.
11:24 I'm not saying that I was hoping that it did not happen,
11:27 but I was like, I'd rather not see it.
11:29 You know, it's like looking at the cell phone
11:32 of the girl you like, you know,
11:34 you're afraid you're gonna find an emoji or something
11:37 that is gonna upset you.
11:38 So best way, not to look at it.
11:40 But then when I was there in August,
11:43 I was like, "Let's go there."
11:44 The people of the museum,
11:46 'cause it's called a museum now,
11:48 we had conversations,
11:50 they would love to have you if you could sing
11:52 some Jewish prayers,
11:54 'cause it cannot be just any songs,
11:56 but like Jewish prayers and stuff.
11:57 I said, "Sure."
11:58 I went and I went there and it was of course,
12:00 a very emotional, very heavy.
12:03 And then I was like, I was talking to this Catholic guy
12:07 who was showing me around the place.
12:10 And I was like, "How? How we let that happen?
12:15 How all of that was about?"
12:17 And he said to me, he said,
12:19 "Well, you know, David, that's why today in Poland,
12:23 we don't allow a single spit on anyone.
12:27 We don't allow a single racial slur,
12:31 a single homophobic slur, anything.
12:34 The slightest thing is something in Germany,
12:37 the slightest thing is five years in jail.
12:39 You have that kid who painted in his school
12:42 who was 16 year old,
12:44 he got five years in jail just for painting Jew.
12:47 Five years is heavy."
12:49 What the guy was telling me is that,
12:50 we don't allow a single spit, a single insult
12:53 because we know, Jean-Paul, that the first spit,
12:58 the first insult is the first step that leads to Auschwitz.
13:03 And you cannot tell me that we exaggerate
13:08 because that's what happened.
13:10 So when he told me that, I was like,
13:12 "Wow, now I understand what activism within its border,
13:17 of course, let's not get paranoid,
13:20 but activism and all this stuff means something."
13:24 But yeah, I forgot what was the question.
13:26 - I don't remember either, but you ended on a good point.
13:29 So that's a good point.
13:32 Well, actually, for those who might not be familiar
13:34 with the Anne Frank story, we know,
13:36 a lot of us know the outside,
13:38 the very periphery of the story.
13:40 Maybe you could just give us a little bit of background.
13:43 - Yeah, absolutely.
13:44 So a lot of people refer to Anne Frank
13:47 about the diary of Anne Frank.
13:49 This musical is really telling the life of Anne Frank.
13:53 When she was in the annex,
13:55 I cannot believe that they were crying every day.
13:58 I'm sure at some point there must have been tensions,
14:01 there must have been arguments.
14:03 She fell in love with Peter, with one guy inside.
14:06 So the story basically is Otto Frank, who has some money.
14:10 He sees that they have to wear a yellow star
14:14 and they're gonna be deported.
14:16 So he says, "Okay, we are going to be the one disappearing.
14:20 We are going to be the one to be hiding."
14:22 So he organizes his own hiding in the annex.
14:27 Step by step, he finds out that, okay,
14:29 his friends, the van Pels,
14:31 they're also in a need to be hidden.
14:33 So he welcomes them.
14:35 Then there's another guy, Dr. Pfeiffer, same story.
14:39 He's been discovered.
14:40 He needs to be hidden.
14:41 And you have that woman, Miep, who works for Otto Frank,
14:45 which a lot of people for a long time accused her
14:48 for denouncing the Franks to Nazi,
14:50 but we found out later that it was absolutely not the truth.
14:53 She helped, actually, the Franks to hide.
14:57 She was bringing magazines, food, clothes, and everything.
15:02 Unfortunately, the Nazis have discovered,
15:06 and we know actually these days,
15:08 thanks to artificial intelligence,
15:10 thanks to a big investigation that was conducted
15:14 by former FBI agent, they found out the person
15:18 who actually denounced them, which is really sad.
15:21 But that person did it to save his life also,
15:23 because that's what the Nazis wanted,
15:26 is to dehumanize the Jews
15:30 so that they would even kill each other
15:33 and eat each other if they have to.
15:35 That's why they used Jews to be "police officer"
15:39 in concentration camps, that they wanted to dehumanize.
15:43 That was part of their psychological strategies.
15:46 Look, even our own people turned against us.
15:48 So then they were discovered,
15:51 and they were taken on the very last train
15:54 that was going to Auschwitz.
15:56 On the very last train, they arrived to Auschwitz,
16:00 and then all the family was killed, died there.
16:05 And who died from typhus,
16:07 because there were so many microbes there.
16:09 There were no showers, no disgusting.
16:12 Otto Frank was the only one.
16:13 He tried to search for his family.
16:15 He couldn't find.
16:16 Back in the days, everybody was going
16:18 to the Hotel Lutetia in Paris,
16:20 'cause that was the meeting.
16:21 Okay, if you survive a concentration camp,
16:24 you go to Hotel Lutetia in Paris,
16:27 'cause that's where everybody's meeting.
16:29 There was no Facebook, there was no internet,
16:31 there was none of that.
16:32 So he was there, he couldn't find them.
16:35 And then he decides to go back to the annex,
16:37 and he finds Miep.
16:39 And Miep, one day, she shows up to the annex,
16:42 and she sees the door of the annex,
16:44 and that's how she finds out that they were taken away.
16:47 And she sees a book on the floor.
16:49 You know, I said, "What that book is?"
16:51 She could have threw it.
16:52 She realizes, "Oh, that's a diary.
16:55 "That's something written by Anne."
16:57 And when Otto comes back, he sees Miep,
16:59 and he tells her, "Unfortunately, it's over for my family.
17:03 "I'm the only survivor out of eight people."
17:05 You know, he's the only one who survived.
17:08 She gave him that diary.
17:09 I think for a year or two, he couldn't open it.
17:12 And then he started to read it,
17:15 and he understood that it was not just
17:17 the memory of his daughter,
17:19 but it was important to have it as a document of that era.
17:24 And the book was a major bestseller,
17:27 and he used that money to help people
17:30 and learn the memory of people.
17:33 Anyway, so that's a little bit the story.
17:35 It's a sad story, but it's about humanity.
17:39 That's why I opened this casting to whoever wanted to come,
17:44 regardless of their religion,
17:47 regardless of their ethnicity,
17:50 regardless of anything,
17:53 because I would say the young Jewish girl is,
17:57 as I would say, legit,
18:00 than the grandson of a US veteran,
18:04 who was not Jewish, but who died
18:06 when he came to free the concentration camps.
18:09 This is why this story belongs to a lot of people,
18:13 for the same reasons that the Martin Luther King
18:16 is part of the universal story.
18:21 Anyone can be attached to it,
18:22 because I added also, and of course,
18:25 Jean-Pierre Hadidat, the composer.
18:27 You know moments when she falls in love with Peter,
18:30 when they hold each other's hand,
18:32 when they learn the innocence,
18:34 the moments with Margot,
18:36 when they remember playing the piano.
18:39 It's the moments with Otto and Anne,
18:42 when he teaches her French.
18:44 There is not a single dry eye in the audience.
18:47 People are really, really touched by it.
18:50 And yeah, you have to be careful
18:52 when you touch that subject,
18:53 when you really go to these moments
18:56 where they all go to the train,
18:57 which was not in the original French version,
19:00 which I added,
19:01 which they go to Auschwitz.
19:03 I'm very, very proud of the work that is done,
19:06 you know, really.
19:07 - Well, congratulations.
19:09 - Thank you, my dear Jean-Paul.
19:10 - These difficult stories are difficult to tell,
19:13 but they need to be told.
19:15 Right, this is a story of Jews in hiding,
19:20 but it's more of a story,
19:23 it's an overarching story of humanity,
19:25 surviving and supporting,
19:27 and the evils that we can all succumb to.
19:32 We have to protect against that.
19:34 - I mean, I know I was married for two years,
19:37 so I know what you're talking about.
19:39 (laughing)
19:41 I was trying to be light a little bit.
19:43 (laughing)
19:44 I had tears in my eyes telling you
19:48 what I was talking about, Anne,
19:49 so I was trying to.
19:50 - I was just saying, you need a little levity.
19:51 And you know what, in your show,
19:52 like you were saying, she falls in love.
19:55 You know what, you cannot live in total gloom and despair.
19:59 There are always moments,
20:01 like when a forest gets raised by fire,
20:04 there's always the flower that pops up.
20:05 And those are the precious moments you have to.
20:08 - And that's what was happening also,
20:10 and we know it from the diary
20:12 that they were sometimes laughing,
20:15 and that she was having fun with her sister,
20:19 that they were still trying to maintain school,
20:22 and learning, and learning in books.
20:25 I visited, I went to the Anne Frank Museum.
20:27 I visited the annex.
20:29 Boy, that was real small, you know?
20:32 (laughing)
20:33 That was really, really small.
20:36 And you were like, wow, eight people here.
20:39 And then you start to think,
20:40 wait, where was the bathroom here?
20:42 There was only just a tiny, small window.
20:45 I mean, how much air in the summer?
20:47 The sun, you know, and you're thinking about all of that.
20:51 And that's why I will bring it to the actors also,
20:54 that they try to make us feel also this thing
20:59 that we should really, really appreciate
21:02 the freedom that we have today,
21:03 because we owe it to these people.
21:06 We owe it to a lot of all these people who were hiding,
21:11 who were helped Jews in those days, you know?
21:15 But also I show it in the movie that is not,
21:18 the Nazis were not just against the Jews.
21:21 They were against the people who were disabled
21:24 'cause they wanted to make quote-unquote a pure race.
21:26 They were against the homosexuals.
21:30 It's also about a tribute of all these people.
21:33 And I think we ought to be proud, whoever it is,
21:37 because of where we are today.
21:40 Also in the same way, be careful that it cannot happen,
21:43 even though, you know, when you see what's happening
21:45 in Ukraine, what is, we're like, wow,
21:48 this is just around the corner.
21:51 - Well, what we can do is learn more about your show.
21:54 So how do people, what a terrible segue,
21:56 but how do people learn more about your show?
21:59 How do they get the tickets?
22:00 Is there a solution on your website?
22:03 - Tickets are on Telecharge.
22:05 They can buy the tickets there.
22:08 And you know, you don't have to be Jewish
22:10 to come to see the show.
22:11 It's really also beautiful in terms of pure stage work.
22:18 And musical theater, it's a beautiful piece of music.
22:22 Like the sensitivity of my friend,
22:25 Jean-Pierre Dida is really enormous.
22:27 And really, I'm really connected to that music
22:32 and all the characters.
22:33 And really the fact that I did it four years ago,
22:36 so much progress.
22:37 Maybe the fact that I did movies as a director
22:40 and produce movies, I think brought me a bigger depth
22:47 into the character 'cause the camera is right
22:49 in front of your face compared to the shows.
22:52 So I'm going to even more depth of the characters
22:56 and I have phenomenal artists and I'm so, so, so happy.
23:01 I added extra roles even to the musical
23:05 and phenomenal musicians.
23:08 It's going to be really a beautiful show.
23:11 And I guarantee you, you're gonna leave
23:14 a little bit different from that show
23:15 'cause that show doesn't leave you the way you came in.
23:18 And that's what I've been trying to do
23:20 in theater of my life is that you leave different
23:22 than when you came in.
23:23 - Thank you so much for coming on again.
23:25 - Oh, my dear Jean-Pierre, what an honor.
23:27 - It's always great to have you on the show.
23:29 - You're the best, you're the best, my friend.
23:31 Thank you really because I just want to say
23:34 that you support so many, not just,
23:37 everybody supports always the big Broadway shows
23:40 and everything, but I'm really,
23:42 my scene is really off Broadway
23:44 and you support not just in New York,
23:47 but all around the world, a lot of shows
23:51 under the big Broadway budget,
23:54 whether it's new musicals, you had me for Scarface,
23:57 there are a couple of, which we're gonna do in 2024,
23:59 by the way, fall 2024.
24:01 Yeah, yeah, there'll be a front row seats just for you.
24:05 And you always support and you're always here
24:08 and the night when you came to New York
24:10 at the premiere of the 10 Commandments,
24:12 sold out, full standing ovation and came on stage
24:16 and said so many kind words and theatrical life.
24:19 In New York, you gave me this award,
24:23 the first award, the award of the Musical Theater Review
24:26 and excellence in theater.
24:29 It's something I will never, never forget.
24:31 It stays very proud in my office.
24:33 So a million thanks to you, my dear Jean-Pierre.
24:36 - Okay, now I have to die first so you can do my eulogy.
24:40 (laughing)
24:42 No, I hope I go before you, that's all.
24:44 (laughing)
24:46 - We'll figure it out.
24:47 - You'll figure it out, but I'll call you first, I promise.
24:49 - Okay. (laughing)
24:51 All right, again, thank you, David.
24:53 And yeah, I'm looking forward to coming
24:55 to see the show in October.
24:56 - Thank you, my dear friend.
24:57 Thank you, Jean-Pierre, God bless you.
24:58 - No problem.
24:59 All right, we were just speaking with David Sorrell,
25:01 the producer and director of Anne Frank, a Musical,
25:05 which is playing at the Actors Temple Theater
25:07 between October 11th and November 5th.
25:09 So if you're in New York, check it out.
25:12 You can always go to our page on the website,
25:16 Wanna See a Musical, where you can look up Anne Frank
25:19 and find out all the details there as well.
25:22 Tune in next week as we'll speak with another guest
25:24 or guests about their life, love and passion,
25:27 that is musical theater.
25:28 I am your host as always, Jean-Paul Jovanoff.
25:30 And until next time, I'll see you when I see you.
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