The reviews are in for Slam Frank, Andrew Fox and Joel Sinensky’s satirical hip-hop musical in which a well-meaning theater company recasts Anne Frank as Anita Franco, a queer Latina rapper, which opened at the Orpheum Theatre on October 4. Directed by Sam LaFrage, it sets out to offend everyone, and the critics are as divided as you would expect. 1 Minute Critic and The Front Row Center are thrilled by its nerve, Culture Sauce finds it overlong and in places plain distasteful, and Vulture was more bored than shocked. What nearly all of them agree on is that Fox’s score is sharp and that Olivia Bernábe is terrific as Anita.
The verdict: seven reviews so far, and three carry a score: 1 Minute Critic gives the show 4 out of 5, New York Stage Review 3 and Culture Sauce 2, an average of 3.0 among the outlets that rate. The rest publish no score. The critics agree that Andrew Fox writes clever, catchy pastiche and that the cast, led by Olivia Bernábe, is excellent; where they part company is over whether the satire earns its provocations, which The Front Row Center and 1 Minute Critic believe it does and Vulture and Culture Sauce doubt.
What are critics saying about Slam Frank?
Vulture
"Deep in an Irony Spiral, Slam Frank Struggles to Show Its Center"
Reviewer: Jackson McHenry
Jackson McHenry finds the show’s targets oddly dated, its jokes about land acknowledgments and identity politics already well worn by stand-up comedians, and its layers of parody so thick that he cannot tell where its creators actually stand.
"I was ready to be shocked and offended, and might even have liked it, I was more often a little bored."
What redeems it for him is Fox’s genuine skill as a songwriter, with an ear for Lin-Manuel Miranda’s flow, and Bernábe’s easy, winning delivery.
TheaterMania
"Slam Frank Is Back, and She Doesn’t Care If You Cancel Her"
Reviewer: Hayley Levitt
Hayley Levitt calls Fox’s score one of the better Hamilton knockoffs, with clever lyrics and catchy tunes, and praises a cast in which every performer gets a moment.
"No doubt, Slam Frank is a bucking bronco in a world of pony rides."
She warns that the show grows wilder as it goes and that some will decide it crosses the line into antisemitism, but thinks those who hang on may come away shaken loose.
New York Stage Review
"The Jewish teen author/Holocaust victim gets an audacious 21st-century musical glow-up"
Reviewer: Melissa Rose Bernardo · 3 out of 5
Melissa Rose Bernardo thinks the show takes aim at too much at once, cramming its 110 minutes with more digs than it can land.
"Slam Frank takes aim at pretty much everyone and everything, and about 50 percent of the shots hit their targets."
She singles out Austen Horne’s slam poem as Edith as a moment of real brilliance, and predicts that Margot’s big number will be the evening’s most divisive scene.
Read Melissa Rose Bernardo’s full review at New York Stage Review
1 Minute Critic
"the diary decolonized"
Reviewer: Matthew Wexler · 4 out of 5
Matthew Wexler admits that the pace means some bits fly past before they land, and that Fox’s borrowings from other musicals start to feel derivative.
"its willingness to offend everyone equally makes it the most daring ticket Off-Broadway this fall."
For him the laughter stops at the right moment, when the show turns to history repeating itself, and that is where it lands its hardest punch.
Culture Sauce
"Lampoons wokeness with jackboots and rap verses while testing the limits of taste"
Reviewer: Thom Geier · 2 out of 5
Thom Geier enjoys the verbal dexterity of Fox’s score and the voices of Bernábe and Alex Lewis, and finds some appeal in using an untouchable icon to mock progressive excess.
"It’s brash, deliberately provocative, sometimes hilarious in a silly way, and eventually overstays its welcome."
He finds the nearly two hours too long and too scattershot, and is troubled by a late twist that leaves the show’s Nazi more sympathetic than its one fully Jewish character.
Times Square Chronicles
"Brilliant, Offensive, Confusing—and Impossible to Stop Talking About"
Reviewer: Suzanna Bowling
Suzanna Bowling is torn: she finds it hard to separate the joke from the real child at the heart of the story, and says plainly that parts of it offended her.
"I also think its cast is beyond, beyond, beyond talented, Andrew Fox’s score is fabulous"
She expects the show’s sheer theatrical invention to win it a cult following, which is precisely what troubles her about it.
Read Suzanna Bowling’s full review at Times Square Chronicles
The Front Row Center
"Slam Frank Is the Gut-Punch You Didn’t Know You Needed… And You’ll Laugh the Whole Way Through"
Reviewer: David Walters
David Walters is the show’s most enthusiastic champion here, calling Bernábe the beating heart of the evening and praising Lewis and Amelia Louise Barr for grounding it amid the chaos.
"this is one of the things that theater is supposed to do."
He argues that its provocation serves something close to hopeful, and urges audiences to go and argue about it on the way home.
For more of what the New York critics have been saying, read our roundups for Kramer/Fauci at St. Ann’s Warehouse and Garry Starr: Classic Penguins at Studio Seaview.
Slam Frank runs at the Orpheum Theatre, 126 Second Avenue, through November 30, 2026. The running time is 1 hour 50 minutes, with no intermission. Production photos by Shawn Salley Photography.
