Broadway had the Barrymores. Britain the Redgraves. Hollywood the Fondas.
And Tampa has… The Friedmans!
Chances are that if you’ve been to the theater in the last several years, you’ve caught a performance by a member of the Friedman family—Noa, 25, who’s worked for just about every local professional company in the area (most recently “The Scarlet Letter” at American Stage); her twin sister, Emma (“Indecent” at American Stage in 2023); or older brother David, 29, who made his debut at American Stage 12 years ago in “The Chosen” and appeared with Emma in the company’s 2024 Park production of “Beauty in the Beast.”
Now David and Noa are making their debuts together at freeFall Theatre in St. Petersburg. They’re playing brother and sister in “And Then They Came For Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank,” a multi-media play by James Still. The playwright integrates interviews he taped with Holocaust survivors Eva Schloss and Ed Silverberg (Anne Frank’s first boyfriend) with scenes from their lives in WWII recreated by live actors. Though first produced more than 25 years ago, the play remains achingly relevant.
‘And Then They Came For Me: Remembering the World of Anne Frank’
Time Fridays, 7 p.m., Saturdays, 2 & 7 p.m., Sundays, 2 p.m., Thu., April 16, 7 p.m., Thu., April 23, 7 p.m., Thu., May 7, 7 p.m. and Thu., May 14, 7 p.m. Continues through May 17
Location Freefall Theatre, 6099 Central Ave., St. Petersburg
Noa plays the young Eva, who lived in the same Amsterdam apartment building as Anne Frank and whose family went into hiding the same day as the Franks. David plays Eva’s brother, Heinz, who died with his father in a Nazi death march.
Both actors feel honored to take part in this project.
“We’re getting close to the point where there will be no more living Holocaust survivors,” says Noa. “So it’s a privilege to be part of how these stories continue to be told.”
“And when you have Jewish actors telling these stories,” says David, “it’s a kind of a triumph, because it shows that ‘The Final Solution’ wasn’t final. This is my f.u. to that— I’m still here and I’m the one telling these stories.”
The Friedmans spoke to Creative Loafing Tampa Bay via Zoom from their parents’ home in Tampa, their comments frequently overlapping. David is based in New York now, as is Emma, but he’s staying in town for the show. Their oldest sister Abigail, 31, lives in San Francisco, but both she and Emma will be coming to see their siblings on stage.
So how did the Friedmans come to be such a theater-centric bunch? Their parents aren’t theater people per se—mom Billie Valloreo is a VP at The Bank of Tampa and dad Stewart Friedman is an efficiency expert—but they are theater fans. When the children were growing up, their parents took them to shows at venues like the Straz and American Stage in the Park. “And now,” says Noa, “they get to come watch us on those same stages.”
“They’ve always been supportive,” says David. “We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without our parents.”
All four siblings attended K-8 grades at Corbett Prep, which places a strong emphasis on the arts. Emma, Noa and David went on to Blake, Tampa’s arts magnet high school, and Abigail studied in King High School’s highly competitive I.B. program, where she was president of Thespians and “basically ran the entire theater program,” according to her brother. “One day she will be the producer of the family, no doubt about it.”
Their oldest sister inspired the younger Friedmans. “She was doing theater in the community and at school, so naturally we wanted to do it too, to be on stage just like her,” says David. They staged their first shows at home. “We put on little skits, costumes, the whole thing, and we’d basically force our parents to sit and watch us perform.”
Abigail later went on to work for the Broadway League, which produces the Tony Awards, but ironically enough she’s the only one of the four siblings who’s not involved in theater at the moment. (She’s working for a shoe company in San Fran, but David and Noa expect she’ll get back into theater eventually.) Both Noa and Emma double-majored in acting and business administration at the University of Florida. David got his degree in musical theater from Penn State, where he minored in history, and went on to get an MA in communications and web design at UF.
Neither of them regard their other studies as alien to their acting careers. On the contrary, they’ve used that background to make deeper connections with the theater world. Noa, who works days at the Glazer Family Jewish Community Center in Tampa, has developed a notable side hustle.
“Honestly, Noa is the best head-shot photographer in the Tampa Bay area,” brags her brother, who says that the shots she took of him are better than those of any actors he’s met in New York.
His own non-acting job—freelance web designer—also taps into his theater connections: His clients include fellow actors, for whom he makes websites. It’s a small bone of contention: “You still haven’t made me one,” Noa grumbles.
Being well-versed in other fields also improves their stagecraft.
“I minored in history,” says David, “so I could learn about the world—in order to influence the way I approach acting.”
And now, those interests—and the siblings’ own family ties—have converged in “And Then They Came For Me.”
As David observes, the story of families destroyed by anti-Semitism is not relevant only to one population, or to just one horrific chapter in world history. It’s a cautionary tale for all of us right now.
“‘Never Again’ means ‘Never Again’ for everybody,” he says. “Not just for the Jews.”
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This article appears in Apr. 02 – 08, 2026.