What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank announces complete casting

Casting has been revealed for the European premiere of Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank.

The show will open at the Marylebone Theatre on 4 October 2024, running until 23 November, directed by the Tony and Olivier Award-winning Patrick Marber.

Joshua Malina, known for his roles in The West Wing and Scandal, makes his London theatre debut as Phil. He is joined by Caroline Catz, best known as Louisa in Doc Martin, who plays Debbie. Dorothea Myer-Bennett (Leopoldstadt and Nachtland), takes on the role of Shoshana. Simon Yadoo, recently seen in Love’s Labour’s Lost and The School for Scandal, portrays Yerucham, while Gabriel Howell, known for The Unfriend and the upcoming live-action How to Train Your Dragon, plays Trevor.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is a “serious comedy” that explores the complexities of identity, politics, and relationships through the lens of two Jewish couples—one secular and the other ultra-Orthodox—navigating a provocative conversation in present-day Florida.

Nathan Englander’s original short story, first published in The New Yorker in 2011, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

Englander said: “I first wrote What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank as a short story for the New Yorker magazine in 2011 and I’ve been rewriting it in different ways ever since. I think my obsession with the piece is probably because the setup is something I see as an increasingly rare occurrence in our ever more polarised and personalised-algorithm driven lives. That is, two best friends, now on opposite ends of political, religious, and economic spectrums come together to talk and laugh and cry it all out—and to see if any of the love they’ve long felt for each other can survive.

“As for working with Patrick Marber, it’s been a dream. We dove into a rewrite of the play more than a year ago and have not come up for air since. It’s been some of the most intense and joyous and depressing work I’ve ever done, and beyond symbiotic tackling the piece together. As relates to the difference in our own styles of communication, I’d like to take this moment to apologise to Patrick for interrupting every single sentence he’s tried to utter (but I highly doubt I’ll stop).”

The creative team includes Anna Fleischle as set designer, Sally Ferguson for lighting design, and David Gregory for sound design, with associate direction by Natalie Simone, movement direction from EJ Boyle and costume supervision by Chantal Short. Helena Palmer was the casting advisor.