Writers

Many of the most important Yiddish writers of all time turned at least a hand to playwriting. For some it was their primary focus, for others it played second fiddle to writing fiction, poetry, reportage, or in other genres. Yiddish drama runs the gamut from hastily written hack work to some of the greatest masterpieces of Yiddish literature, and of world drama.


October 17, 2017

My Zylbercweig

Zalmen Zylbercweig blazed a path that all subsequent students of Yiddish theatre history follow…
October 9, 2017

Zalmen Zylbercweig, Shnorer-historian of the Yiddish Theatre

When Zalmen Zylbercweig, died in 1972, he was 77, and just about to finish Volume 7 of his Encyclopedia of Yiddish Theatre, which he had been working on for 54 years.
April 18, 2017

The Stones Outtake

An outtake from the play Indecent
April 6, 2017

Yiddish Drama on the Broadway Stage

From its beginnings, New York’s Yiddish theatre intersected with the mainstream English-language stage.
February 28, 2017

10 Things You Need to Know About God of Vengeance

A Twitter summary of its production history would read something like this: “admired, translated, parodied, panned, banned, prosecuted, withdrawn, forgotten, revived, celebrated.”
November 20, 2016

London – New York, or The Great British Yiddish Theatre Brain Drain

We Brits Have been sending some of our finest actors across the Atlantic for as long as anyone can remember.