The full cast of Nathan Englander’s new play, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, has been announced.

Making his London stage debut is the previously announced West Wing and Scandal star Joshua Malina, as the “secular, sarcastic, anti-religious Jew” Phil. The American star is doing a Q&A at the JC’s exclusive showing of the Patrick Marber-directed play on October 15 at the Marylebone Theatre.

Malina is joined by Caroline Catz, who is best known for her roles as Louisa in ITV’s Doc Martin and DI Helen Morton in DCI Banks, as Debbie; Dorothea Myer-Bennett, an Offie Award-winning actress whose stage credits include Nachtland at the Young Vic and Tom Stoppard’s Leopoldstadt in the West End, both directed by Patrick Marber, as Shoshana; Simon Yadoo, recently seen in Love’s Labour’s Lost and The School for Scandal as Yerucham; and Gabriel Howell, from The Unfriend in the West End and soon to be starring in the live-action adaptation of How to Train Your Dragon, as Trevor.

The play is based on Nathan Englander’s acclaimed 2011 short story

Billed as a “serious comedy”, What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is based on Englander’s acclaimed 2011 short story in The New Yorker and opens at the Marylebone Theatre October 4 to November 23. The national press night is October 14.

It is the title story from Englander’s 2012 short story collection – inspired by Raymond Carver's famous What We Talk About When We Talk About Love – that won the 2012 Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank is directed by Patrick Marber, director of the Olivier and Tony Award-winning Leopoldstadt, and produced by Oliver King from 2023's The White Factory.

Nathan 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.

Patrick Marber directs What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank

Of working with Patrick Marber, he said: “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.”

Patrick Marber said: “I’ve loved Nathan Englander’s work since I read his astounding debut short story collection, For The Relief Of Unbearable Urges. I’m very excited to be directing this UK premiere of his new play. It’s a rare thing to find a comedy that is both hilarious and deeply serious. I’m greatly looking forward to rehearsals with this exceptional cast and with the remarkable Mr Englander in attendance.”

The JC is hosting an exclusive showing of ‘What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank’ followed by a Q&A with Josh Malina and the cast at the Marylebone Theatre on October 15

To book use the code: JCEVENT 

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