A Role Worth Waiting For

Singer Andrea Marcovicci found herself in the unlikely position of waiting two decades for the opportunity to sing a musical-theater piece written exclusively for her.

The production, “Yours, Anne,” based on the diary of Anne Frank, was written by Enid Futterman, Marcovicci’s close friend.

Futterman, a New York-based writer who has written four musical-theater shows, began writing the Anne Frank piece in the mid-1970s, with Marcovicci in mind to play Frank. At the time, Marcovicci was in her 20s and bore a strong resemblance to Frank.

But because of problems with copyrights, the deaths of the show’s producers and other obstacles, the show, originally targeted to open on Broadway with Marcovicci, was delayed and delayed. It became an off-Broadway production in 1985, but without Marcovicci.

Finally, Marcovicci’s time has come.

She premieres the show, now revised as a one-woman concert called “I Am Anne Frank,” tonight at the Fullerton Museum Center. Her performance coincides with opening night of the center’s “Anne Frank in the World” exhibition.

Reformatted to account for the age discrepancy--Frank died in a Nazi concentration camp when she was 15--the show brings Marcovicci’s roller-coaster ride of expectation to an end.

“I am crying a lot in rehearsal,” said Marcovicci, now a fortysomething wife and mother. “This music is deeply moving to me. When I sing it, there is a kind of synchronicity which is rare--this music was made for me. This is our music; it is our project. It has been ours since I was 20.”

It was an odd twist of fate that brought Marcovicci the opportunity to do the show after so many years.

During a performance one night three years ago at the Gardenia Club in Hollywood, where she sings regularly, Marcovicci began to tell the audience about one song from the “Yours, Anne” repertoire. She lamented the fact that she never got the chance to perform the entire piece.

Unbeknownst to her, Stan Levy, a rabbi and Los Angeles lawyer who was in the audience, knew exactly where she could perform the act.

Levy called his friend Bruce Giuliano, chairman of the Anne Frank Organizing Committee and sponsor of the internationally touring exhibition “Anne Frank in the World.”

“The wonderful thing about this is that it has come full circle,” said Futterman, who is godmother to Marcovicci’s only child. “Somehow this role was always meant for Andrea. Her voice has an uncanny blend of strength and vulnerability. In addition to her exquisite voice, there is something rock solid about her, and to me that is what is Anne Frank is.”

The one-night-only performance will include 13 songs, written by Futterman and composed by Michael Cohen, as well as excerpts from Frank’s diary, as dramatized by Marcovicci.

Futterman and Cohen hope to bring the act to other theaters nationwide--independent of the “Anne Frank in the World” tour--with Marcovicci as well as with other singers.

The Fullerton performance is the only one booked for Marcovicci. She sees this as an opportunity to not only fulfill a lifelong dream, but also to bring the tragedy of the Holocaust to people through art, as in the following passage from one of the show’s songs:

Dear Kitty,

I hear the ever approaching thunder

I feel the suffering of people being torn apart

and yet, in spite of everything

I still believe that people are good at heart

I still believe that someday this war will end

We will see peace again

Go home again

I still believe what I can

Yours, Anne

“It is not enough to remember,” said Marcovicci, a Los Angeles resident. “One has to experience [the Holocaust] viscerally. Sometimes through art and the deep emotionalism of singing, you might get into a person’s heart in a place where they may never have been touched before.”

* What: “I Am Anne Frank” with Andrea Marcovicci.

* When: Tonight at 7.

* Where: Fullerton Museum Center, 301 S. Pomona Ave.

* Whereabouts: Orange (57) Freeway to Chapman Avenue, Fullerton exit. Go west and turn left onto Pomona Avenue (one block before Harbor Boulevard).

* Wherewithal: $50.

* Where to call: (714) 738-6545.