NORTH Yorkshire theatre director Nikolai Foster has moved from Annie to Anne. On the heels of his triumphant production of the American musical about orphan Annie at the West Yorkshire Playhouse, he is now in rehearsals for The Diary Of Anne Frank at York Theatre Royal.

The co-production with the Touring Consortium Theatre Company, last year’s partners for To Kill A Mockingbird, will open in York next Friday before heading out on tour.

It reunites Nikolai with the Touring Consortium, for whom he had directed Kes three or four years ago.

“This time I wanted to do a piece that would have educational value and be taken on tour as well as produced at the Theatre Royal,” says Nikolai.

“Damian Cruden [the Theatre Royal artistic director] approached me about it last year and we met in a restaurant at King’s Cross, where we discussed the piece and what I might do with it. For me, it’s a wonderful chance to forge new relationships as you realise what a vibrant, exciting and brilliantly run regional theatre the York Theatre Royal is.”

The Diary Of Anne Frank promised to be a significant production to start the new Theatre Royal year: presenting the story of a Jewish girl’s account of hope, courage and survival, hidden away with her family in a house in the hostile environment of Nazi-occupied Amsterdam from 1942 to 1944, in the city of York, where Clifford’s Tower still casts its shadow.

“I was aware of the history of Clifford’s Tower, but it startled me to learn that people have called York ‘Persil Town’. That makes it all the more important that the play is opening in York, as people will pause to think about the city they’re living in, although it bears no relation now to that ugly past,” says Nikolai.

“It’s inspiring to think that doing a play like this could put a deafening full stop to anyone believing they couldn’t come and live here or spend time here because of what happened hundreds of years ago, though I don’t want to make light of anyone’s suffering.”

Rehearsals began with Nikolai and the cast discussing the Second World War, Hitler and the persecution of the Jews, taking in differing opinions, before they started to focus on the world of the play.

“What we found ourselves talking about was the human spirit to survive when these two families are brought together,” says Nikolai.

“You suddenly realise that the driving thrust of this story, written at the height of one of the most disgusting, turbulent periods of all, is that it’s about how people struggle for survival in the most testing of circumstances.

“Perversely, it becomes gripping because, like a play by Ibsen or Chekhov, you are studying the human form in its most extreme situations. That’s why we go to the cinema and theatre and read books, to see humans coping in adversity and times of great tragedy.”

• The Diary Of Anne Frank runs at York Theatre Royal from February 17 to March 3, then goes on tour. Box office: 01904 623568 or yorktheatreroyal.co.uk