Periods

Explore Yiddish performances by period, from the Middle Ages to the 21st century.

February 27, 2018

The Yiddish Dramatic Repertoire: A User’s Guide
The narrator of Thomas Wolfe’s 1935 story “Only the Dead Know Brooklyn” begins his snarky account of an encounter with a man exploring the borough by proclaiming, “Dere’s no guy livin’ dat knows Brooklyn t’roo an’ t’roo, because it’d take a guy a lifetime just to find his way aroun’ duh goddam town.” Replace “Brooklyn” with “the Yiddish […]
February 12, 2018

Rubber Bullets at False Targets: On Dzigan and Shumacher’s Performance in the Soviet Union
Shimen Dzigan and Isroel Schumacher’s professional artistic career began as actors in the experimental Yiddish theatre “Ararat,” in Łódź .
January 9, 2018

Revival and Homage Productions of Yiddish Theatre
There’s something about the popular entertainment of the 1880s-1930s that draws people to fool around with creative ways of making it contemporary.
December 11, 2017

Goodbye, Columbia: A Yiddish Playwright and the German Stage
Pinski came to prominence as a Yiddish writer and playwright, yet his connection to German theatre and cultural life was strong.
November 27, 2017

Perla Rozenblum: A Porteño Life in Yiddish Theatre
Why is it that I love the theatre so much? Because my parents, in Poland, went to the theatre a lot.
October 17, 2017

My Zylbercweig
Zalmen Zylbercweig blazed a path that all subsequent students of Yiddish theatre history follow…