Periods

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

July 2, 2015

A Lost Film, Found
I’d never heard of him before, but I’ve found out a few things about Mark Schweid since February.
June 29, 2015

The Krakow Yiddish Theatre Postcards – a Crowdsourcing Experiment
Think of the pulsating energy of Motown’s dawn in Detroit. Or the soaring sounds of early jazz in New Orleans.
May 18, 2015

Audiences are Idiots
One of the hardest problems in theatre studies is understanding audiences response.
April 28, 2015

Matzah and Melodrama: Nahum Stutchkoff’s Yiddish Song Lyrics
Nahum Stutchkoff (1893-1965) was a beloved Yiddish radio personality, playwright, lyricist and linguist who created dramas and commercials for WEVD radio.
March 18, 2015

Russians? Cossacks? Jews? The Russian Imperial Singers Unmasked
SOME PHOTOGRAPHS JUST make you smile, and this is one of them. When I first saw it I thought it was a group of adults dressed up for the Jewish festival of Purim. That would explain the Cossack-style costumes and the (real or fake?) comedy store moustaches. In fact, although it’s not a Purim photo, that […]
March 4, 2015

A Writer, a Painter, and Queen Esther
Purim reminds us that modern Yiddish theatre traces its lineage from the traditional folk drama genre known as the Purim-shpil.