A nationally acclaimed program on the life of Anne Frank is being shared in middle schools and the North Idaho community this week.

Brought to audiences by the Human Rights Education Institute and community grant funding, "Through the Eyes of a Friend" will be on stage at 6:30 tonight in the Jacklin Arts and Cultural Center in Post Falls. Virtual performances are taking place throughout the week in local classrooms.

The free performance is conducted by Rachael McClinton, co-founder and artistic director of Living Voices, a theater company that combines solo performances with archival footage to bring history to life.

"We're in a unique place in history right now," McClinton, of Seattle, said Tuesday.

She said by the time today's eighth-graders are adults, everyone who witnessed World War II will be gone.

"The survivors, the liberators, our own families," she said. "We all should be looking to our families and going, 'What did we go through during WWII?' Because everybody’s life changed."

In "Through the Eyes of a Friend," McClinton plays Sarah, a historically accurate composite character based on testimonies of those who knew Anne Frank, as well as other victims, resisters and survivors of the Holocaust and World War II.

Like Anne Frank, Sarah is a young Jewish girl in Amsterdam when Hitler comes to power. Her experiences under Nazi rule, in hiding and through the concentration camps, mirror Anne’s story. "Through the Eyes" focuses on the lives of young people before and after the events of Anne's diary.

"One of the powers of theater is that we can, in a way, break through the boundaries of time," McClinton said. "What we’re doing with this piece is creating a context. What happens when a young person's life is upended?

"Anne Frank is not a young woman who grew up in an attic," she continued. "We're trying to create a sense of before and after."

The Pend Oreille Arts Council will host performances in the Priest River area Thursday and Friday.

The JACC is at 405 N. William St., Post Falls.