The Diary of Anne Frank” opens March 26 at the Shreveport Little Theatre for a limited engagement of a new adaptation of the familiar story from World War II.

Leading the cast is Lucia Boyd in the title role in the script by Frances Goodrich, Albert Hackett, and Wendy Kesselman.

It tells the story of a young Jewish girl who receives a diary from her parents and begins filling it with her thoughts and activities. Within a month, her perspective changes as the Nazis begin their march through Holland.

Anne and her family are forced to hide in an annex of her father’s office building to avoid being scooped up in the pogroms Hitler put into place against those of Jewish lineage. The ordeal gives Anne plenty of time to reflect on the life that has ended and the new “normal” she and her family are experiencing.

This iteration of the story contains newly discovered writings from the young girl’s diary. Other survivor accounts have been added to flesh out the story of people persecuted under Nazi rule.

Director Mary Joris said the play allows the audience to revisit the Holocaust in a different way.

“I think that the Holocaust is still so close to us that we don’t want to have to think about it or acknowledge it unless we just have to in school or history class. Anne was a typical teenage girl except for the fact that she was absolutely brilliant. At the same time, she was flirtatious, angry, mean and comical. It was just wonderful. I don’t think we ever think of her as just a typical teenage girl from a middle class Jewish family who enjoyed the freedom and the luxury of life,” Joris said.

Anne Frank begins her diary when she is 13 and it continues until she is 15. Joris said, in the beginning, the experience is exciting for Frank, but the tedium must have quickly paled. She said, “By the time she’s 15, she’s a woman. Even though she hasn’t experienced some things.” Joris said Frank witnessed firsthand how hearts fall apart, how people seem to disintegrate, and yet somehow the human spirit remains triumphant.

“Not moving during the day. Staying perfectly still. Not being able to use the facilities. Not having any food except what the two people brought them once or twice a week. Not being able to speak to one another. Their whole lives being turned upside down. Their lives began at nighttime, after five o’clock, through five o’clock the next morning.”

Joris is no stranger to “message” plays. She said she doesn’t consider herself an entertainer. “I’d like for people to think, to feel, and to experience the event on stage through the actors. I love to give you a little controversy,” Joris said. “I mean, any changes that have been made in history are because of controversy. Not because people were placid and enjoyed life and were happy.”

Joris praised her cast, calling it an ensemble despite the prominence of Anne’s character.

She said each of the actors had plenty of homework to do in preparing for the show. “They had to do research because these are real people in real circumstances with real relationships. If they don’t know what their relationships are, and what has happened to them, you don’t have a play. You just have a bunch of people up there saying somebody’s lines that mean nothing.”

Appearing with Boyd are Sloan Folmer as Otto Frank, Mary Zapczynski as Edith Frank, Brittany Williams as Margot Frank, Maggie Malone as Miep Gies, Benjamin Maxey as Peter Van Daan, George Sewell as Mr. Kraler, Cara Derrick as Mrs. Van Daan, Jim Cowles as Mr. Van Daan, and Kerry Kirspel as Mr. Dussel.

Performances are scheduled at 7:30 p.m.

March 26-29 and at 2 p.m. March 29 and 30 at 812 Margaret Place in Shreveport. Tickets are $15. For information and reservations, call the box office at 424- 4439 or go by the theatre. Box office hours are noon to 4 p.m. weekdays.

Joris said the universality of the story makes “The Diary of Anne Frank” relevant today. “My responsibility is to get people to come and see something and, hopefully, feel something,” she said.