1876-1899

“Come on, sister, yuh gotta play ball: this is Chicago!” (Jake to Roxie – the final line of Chicago, a play by Maurine Dallas Watkins.) Chicago, Chicago Chicago, with music by John Kander and lyrics by Fred Ebb, is a two-billion-dollar enterprise according to Wikipedia. It enjoyed a very successful initial run of 936 performances on Broadway from […]

Excerpts from Fir doyres idish teater: di lebns-geshikhte fun Zina Rapel (Cuatro generaciones de teatro israelita), by Nechemias Zucker (Buenos Aires: Eygener farlag, 1944) Translated and with an introduction and commentaries by Zachary M. Baker. Zalmen Zylbercweig’s Leksikon fun yidishn teater (Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre; 6 vols., 1931-1969) has significant gaps in its coverage of Yiddish actors […]

A search in the Yiddish press for Ida Badanes (1874-1946) largely returns two types of results: regular advertisements for her medical office (first in the East Village, and later on the Upper East Side), shared with husband, Alexander (Jacob) Ravnitsky, and many hundreds of columns published in the Forverts, Der Tog and the Jewish Ladies Home Journal’s “Di froyen […]

Regina Prager was one of the first leading ladies of the Yiddish stage, known for her extraordinary operatic voice and her continued Jewish observance throughout her life.

Bella Bellarina was born in Warsaw on July 15, 1898, into the legendary Rubinlicht family, known for the intellectual and cultural accomplishments of its worldly children.

Yiddish theatre…the gayest theater?