Mineola Drama Students Preview "The Diary of Anne Frank"

Thanks to Hurricane Sandy, the Mineola High School 2012 fall play is getting a bit of a reprieve and chance to hold its opening night – albeit a little later than anticipated.

“I didn’t realize that we were going to have so much drama in our lives this year,” drama advisor Matthew DeLuca said during a meeting of the Mineola Board of Education on November 15 at the Willis Avenue School, “but we alternate every year, comedy, drama, comedy, drama in order to give the students the opportunity to try different things and act different parts.”

This year the drama club will be performing “The Diary of Anne Frank,” which DeLuca admits “may not sound like something everyone is in the mood to see these days, but it certainly offers perspective.”

When it was announced that Mineola High School would be closed following Hurricane Sandy, the drama club had no set when school was announced to be closed, but opening night was pushed back from Nov. 16 to November 30 and December 1.

Cast members include Katie Barnwell as “Anne”, Quinn Ginsberg as “Mr. Dussel”, the last to arrive at the annex, and Tommy Mullane, a techie in the club who is playing Ann’s father, who also exemplifies what Deluca says of the cast, many of whom are “new to the size of the part that we have. That’s the most beautiful thing about the drama club, you never know what’s going to happen at these auditions; you think they know and then we’re often surprised.”

Both Barnwell and Ginsberg performed monologues from the play, describing life in the annex and the conditions in the Jewish Ghetto, respectively.