Dear 'Diary'

MOSES LAKE — Columbia Basin audiences get the opportunity to see teenage performers tackle some sensitive material this week.

The Moses Lake High School Masque and Gavel drama club puts on "Diary of Anne Frank" beginning Thursday.

The play runs at 7 p.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday, with a matinee Saturday at 2 p.m.. Prices are $5 per person.

Teacher Don Hendrixson said he was looking for more serious subject matter for the group's latest play.

"We haven't done a dramatic, serious play," he said. "The other thing I wanted was something which would have a universal, long-lasting message. This is a story which does that." Proceeds go back into the Associated Student Body club's funds. The club focuses on performances and plays, Hendrixson said.

"I believe theater is one of the few places still around we can find truth," he said. "Theater involves so many different arts."

"Diary" includes music, visual arts, performing arts.

"It involves so many different skills," Hendrixson said. "It sort of taps into all those different things, and then brings them together. Also practically, I think it teaches work ethic to these kids. They understand what it means to develop a product and then present it in front of people with accountability."

Hendrixson double-cast many roles in the performance. Some students will play their parts during the Thursday show and the Saturday matinee, while others will play the roles Friday and Saturday evening. Most performers have the opportunity to perform in two shows each.

"I had a number of kids who I thought, not only do they have the ability to do these roles, they also demonstrated great potential," he explained. "I think it's a good encouragement knowing there's somebody else there who can also do your part."

Hendrixson called the story of Frank, a young girl who writes in her diary in the midst of the Holocaust, one of the most significant personal stories of the 20th Century.

"To me it's timeless because some of the things brought up in the story from her perspective are things we continue to deal with all the time," he said.

Hendrixson wanted the students in the show and members of the audience to understand religious oppression and intolerance through the play.

"I think the closer we come to performance, the more that's coming across," he said.

Junior Cecilia Hernandez and freshman Rebecca Gish share duties as Anne. Hernandez plays Anne Friday and Saturday, while Gish plays her Thursday and the matinee.

"I think it has a really good message about nondiscrimination," Hernandez said. "It wasn't only back then. We're still facing it today. I think it makes you really understand — when you're going through it, you realize how many similarities there are from (the play) to how it still is. I think it will be a really good message if people come and watch it."

Both performers are finding the intensity of the play.

"At the end, when the German soldiers come in, that's just a scary feeling," Gish said. "I feel honored to do something this big."

Gish said the play is dedicated to Liviu Librescu, the Holocaust survivor who died in the shootings at Virginia Tech April 16.

"Because he was a Holocaust survivor, and he still lived out his life, and did his best to help other people, anyway," Gish explained.