NEW YORK TIMES: ‘Slam Frank,’ a Daring Satire, and ‘Crooked Cross’ Demand Our Attention

A gleefully provocative new musical and a quiet 1930s domestic drama speak to each other across time, resounding quite loudly in our present.

By Laura Collins-Hughes
Oct. 24, 2025

History overlaps in ways that become notable only in retrospect. Anne Frank was just 4 years old when her family fled Nazi Germany, one by one: her father, then her mother, then her sister. It was 1933, the year that Adolf Hitler rose to power, and they were Jews in search of safety. Anne was the last to leave, joining them in the Netherlands in early 1934.