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Warsaw, Poland
Articles
Articles
- Dystopia on the Verge: Or Why a 1934 Yiddish Play About Charlie Chaplin Still Matters
- Rubber Bullets at False Targets: On Dzigan and Shumacher’s Performance in the Soviet Union
- 10 Things You Need to Know About God of Vengeance
- A Writer, a Painter, and Queen Esther
- Ola Lillith’s Edgy, Avant-Garde Yiddish Cabaret
Bowery (Thalia) Theatre
Articles
Articles
- Osherowitch and Rumshinsky on the Piety of Regina Prager
- Grand Opera for Yiddish Speakers in Early Twentieth-Century America! Who Knew?!
- Something Special for the High Holidays
- Yiddish Drama on the Broadway Stage
- “I would have run away, but there was only one path for me - onto the stage”: Bertha Kalich at the Romanian National Theatre, Part II
January 5, 2023
Osherowitch and Rumshinsky on the Piety of Regina Prager
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.
September 12, 2022
Vos flist durkhn oder: A conversation with playwright Mikhl Yashinsky on his new play
Mikhl Yashinsky’s new one-act Yiddish play premiered at the Lower East Side Play Festival at the Stanton Street Shul in New York City on July 25, 2022.
June 20, 2022
How I Got Five Thousand Dollars from a Theatre Customer
In his memoirs, Menashe Skulnik recalled the many years when he performed in cities outside of New York – including six years in Philadelphia, which he considered to be a theatrical purgatory.
August 21, 2021
Khonen in Drag: Cross-Dressing in Two Productions of The Dybbuk during the 1920s (Plus, a Review of One of These Productions)
What was the “trouser role”?
June 29, 2021
A Timeline of Yiddish Drag
Yiddish theatre…the gayest theater?
June 21, 2021
The Bird of COVID
Chava Rosenfarb’s Der foygl fun geto (The Bird of the Ghetto) had its Yiddish-language premiere April 18 to 22, on the Folksbiene’s video channel.
June 8, 2021
The Menashe Skulnik Story in the Forward
Menashe Skulnik (1892-1970) was one of the great comic actors of the Yiddish theatre, remembered for his trademark porkpie hat and beloved for his schlemiel-like stage persona.
May 24, 2021
Menashe Skulnik Becomes a Star in Buenos Aires
Menashe Skulnik (1892-1970) was one of the great comic actors of the Yiddish theatre, remembered for his trademark porkpie hat and beloved for his schlemiel-like stage persona.
April 12, 2021
Why Wikidata is Good for Yiddish Theatre Research
Part two of two on how the digital humanities can inspire the world of Yiddish theatre.
March 15, 2021
Wikidata, Yiddish Theatre Posters, and the World
Der dibek, 1975, Israeli Yiddish entertainment posters, 1930-1981, Department of Special Collections and University Archives, Stanford University.
February 11, 2021
When Corona Came to The Party
What do you do when Coronavirus comes to your birthday party?
January 28, 2021
Adapting God of Vengeance in Buenos Aires: An Interview with Argentine Director Daniel Teveles
The DYTP interviews Daniel Teveles about his reinterpretaiton Sholem Asch’s canonical drama God of Vengeance.
December 30, 2020
An Interview with Ellen Perecman
DYTP contributing editor Alyssa Quint interviews Ellen Perecman about her new collection of translations, Ten Yiddish Plays in Translation.
November 11, 2020
Ven Moysh iz geforn: Maurice Schwartz on the Yiddish Theatre in Argentina in 1930 (Part I)
In May 1930, Maurice Schwartz – Yiddish actor, director, impresario – went to Buenos Aires, Argentina.
November 11, 2020
Ven Moysh iz geforn: Maurice Schwartz on the Yiddish Theatre in Argentina in 1930 (Part II)
Part II of Maurice Schwartz’s travels to Argentina in 1930.
July 29, 2020
How Two Nudniks Saved History from the Fire
The Moscow State Yiddish Theatre archives are available digitally!
July 15, 2020
Teaching with the Digital Yiddish Theatre Project
Yiddish in the time of COVID.
July 2, 2020
Interview: Filmmaker Alejandro Vagnenkos on the Buenos Aires Yiddish Legend Jevel Katz
Patricial Nuriel interviews Alejandro Vagnenkos about his documentary Jevel Katz y sus paisanos.
May 29, 2020
Between Biznes and Art: Commercial and Independent Companies in the Yiddish Theatre of Buenos Aires (1930-1960)
“If you can find an enthused theatre crowd 6,000 miles from New York, it means that Yiddish theatre still has a future.”
April 21, 2020
“S’iz nisht dos vos amol iz geven”: Max Perlman (1909-1985)
Of all the Yiddish entertainers to have visited South Africa after the Holocaust, Max Perlman is virtually the only artist who is still remembered today.
March 11, 2020
Biz 120: The Yiddish Artists and Friends Actors’ Club at 85
85 years of the Yiddish Artists and Friends Actors’ Club…
February 13, 2020
Interview with Joshua Horowitz on the Orchestration of Bas-Sheve
In February 2019, Josh Horowitz was sent the manuscript of Henekh Kon’s piano and vocal score of the only known pre-Holocaust Yiddish opera, Bas-Sheve.
January 23, 2020
Interview: Alicia Svigals and Donald Sosin on Their Film Score for The Ancient Law
Alicia Svigals and Donald Sosin on scoring a Weimar-era film about a backwoods Jewish boy whose talent leads him to show business success and possible romance with a well-placed Gentile woman.
December 20, 2019
Magic and Melody Delight in a Yiddish Fairytale Reborn
An evil stepmother. A brave heroine in danger. A handsome fiancé. A conniving sorceress. A plan foiled. A fairytale wedding.
November 6, 2019
Theatre: A Sketch
Jessica Kirzane’s translation and introduction of Miriam Karpilove’s “Theatre.”
August 21, 2019
An Interview with Daniel Galay
Daniel Galay is a prolific playwright, composer, and pianist living in Israel.
June 29, 2019
“A Piquant Curiosity”: The Gender-Bending Drama Yo a man, nit a man
Read about the gender-bending play Yo a man, nit a man (Yes a Man, Not a Man).
May 17, 2019
Grand Opera for Yiddish Speakers in Early Twentieth-Century America! Who Knew?!
In the spring of 1904, New York witnessed the unlikely spectacle of a musical-dramatic adaptation of Richard Wagner’s Parsifal—in Yiddish.
April 30, 2019
Dystopia on the Verge: Or Why a 1934 Yiddish Play About Charlie Chaplin Still Matters
Somewhere, in an obscure port city in Europe…
April 15, 2019
The World of Sara Levy
Sara Levy studied with Wilhelm Friedemann Bach, son of J. S. Bach, and became an accomplished keyboardist. She also supported a Jewish orphanage in Berlin and was a known salon hostess.
April 2, 2019
Yiddish Theatre in Buenos Aires Between the Two World Wars
Buenos Aires has grown to be one of the most important cities for Yiddish theatre in South America.
February 20, 2019
“More Argentine than Martín Fierro”: Jevel Katz’s Debut in Buenos Aires, 1930
During the 1930s, Buenos Aires cemented its reputation as one of the capitals of Yiddishland. And Jevel Katz, the Yiddish Carlos Gardel, one of the greats.
December 21, 2018
Why Does Muni Weisenfreund Play “Shund”?
The career of the young actor Muni Weisenfreund is noteworthy, practically legendary.
November 27, 2018
But Enough About Strindberg; Let’s Talk About Goldenberg!
Oh, to have witnessed such a scene!
October 12, 2018
Hatuey: Memory of Fire—An Interview
As part of our coverage of the recent premiere of Hatuey: Memory of Fire, Joel Berkowitz interviewed members of the production’s creative team about the work’s genesis and influences and much more.
October 2, 2018
A Yiddish Poet, a Cuban Revolutionary, and a Historical Legend Walk Into a Bar: A Review of Hatuey: Memory of Fire
A brand-new opera, sung partially in Yiddish and partially in Spanish—and sometimes in both languages at the same time.
September 21, 2018
Found in Translation: Hatuey, Cuba, and the Jews
Some background on the Yiddish epic poem, Hatuey.
August 30, 2018
Avrom Fishzon, or the Berdichev Sheherazad
The DYTP’s first long form blog post: a reflection on the actor and impresario Avrom Fishzon (1843?–1922).
August 2, 2018
How Jewish Can One Fiddler Be?: Reflections on the Folksbiene’s Fidler afn dakh
DAVID LEARNED ABOUT the Yiddish production of Fiddler on the Roof from his husband’s non-Jewish aunt, who lives on the Upper West Side. Auntie Kay, as we call her, has the pulse on Jewish New York like no one else, even though she’s not Jewish. He then emailed his culture-maven colleague in New York, Rebecca Kobrin, to see […]
July 26, 2018
A Yiddish Homecoming for Fiddler on the Roof
Fifteen years ago, I played violin in the pit orchestra for a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof in Sheldon, Iowa, a town whose five thousand residents were overwhelmingly white, Christian, and politically conservative. As the only Jew in at least a fifty-mile radius, I wondered how the show would resonate with the audience, most of whom […]
July 17, 2018
A fidler afn dakh: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish
Before there was Fiddler, there was Tevye.
July 5, 2018
Zylbercweig’s Leksikon and Selfridges’ Rump Steak: In Memoriam Harry Ariel
In this tale of Łódź and London, David Mazower remembers the Yiddish actor Harry Ariel and a life-changing association with theatre historian Zalmen Zylbercweig.
June 6, 2018
When Sholem Asch Met Tarantino: Motke ganev Comes to Tel Aviv
The play’s melodramatic plot was fleshed out with attractive costumes, a dynamic set design, and songs by Leonard Cohen, performed cabaret-style by a female singer.
May 9, 2018
Yiddish Theatre Stars & Matinee Girls on the Move
You didn’t need to be the Great Gatsby to have a good time in the Roaring Twenties.
April 11, 2018
Rosa Rapoport and Teatro IFT in Buenos Aires
In this excerpt from Rosa’s oral history, she shares her memories performing on stage at Teatro IFT, and the theatre’s eventual transition from Yiddish to a Spanish-language repertoire.
March 26, 2018
Sholem Asch at the End of the World
Sholem Asch belongs to those Yiddish authors who often defy rather than obey the conventions of Yiddish culture and Jewish sensibilities.
March 12, 2018
Curtain Falls on the Sunshine Theatre
One of the last remnants of the Second Avenue Yiddish Theatre District will be demolished to give way for a “boutique” office building.
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.
September 24, 2017
Something Special for the High Holidays
Kol Nidre on Broadway, a cantor with a voice that sounds like fifty canaries, and other High Holiday gigs in turn-of-the-century New York City.
September 11, 2017
Yaschar: My Father’s Life in Yiddish Theatre
Yaschar Aronowicz, My father, participated in Yiddish theatre for three decades, in at least two European cities, Berlin and Paris.
August 8, 2017
Yiddish Opera at the Standard Theatre, London 1895
Who in Surabaya would possibly be interested in reading about Yiddish theatre in London’s East End?
July 20, 2017
The Grand Street Theatre: A Modern Playhouse Built for Old-fashioned Shund
“A note of patriotic fervor, mingled with the pride of local achievement marked the opening of the new Grand Theatre, at Chrystie and Grand streets, last night,”
May 29, 2017
Théâtre Lancry: The Center of Yiddish Paris
Paris is known for, among other things, its theatre. Institutions like the Théâtre de l’Odéon and the Comédie-Française, for example, come immediately to mind. Lost to history, however, is Théâtre Lancry: the first and most important site of Yiddish theatre in Paris. First built in 1880, Théâtre Lancry was intended as a small space for community gatherings. It seated […]
May 15, 2017
The Troïm-Teater and Contemporary Yiddish Theatre in Paris
Yiddish theatre is alive and well in the City of Light.
April 27, 2017
Scoring Indecent
Lisa Gutkin details the living and breathing aspect of music composition, what it means to strike the right tone, and how melodies appear, disappear, and reappear.
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.
March 22, 2017
“I would have run away, but there was only one path for me – onto the stage”: Bertha Kalich at the Romanian National Theatre, Part II
When I finished the performance, I kept asking Spachner and Hirsh, “where did the rotten onions go?”
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.”
January 16, 2017
Sholem Asch: God of Vengeance is Not an Immoral Play
Because of the wrong interpretation of my play, *The God of Vengeance*, now running at the Apollo Theatre, I wish to make the following statement…
January 7, 2017
Brothel Intrigue, with a Modern Twist: Got fun nekome at the New Yiddish Rep
The New Yiddish Rep’s production is no period play. The play itself feels remarkably modern, even 110 years later, and the New Yiddish Rep has given *Got fun nekome* a production to match.
December 29, 2016
Journeys Through a Life in the Theatre: Charles Slucki (1948-2015)
"There are no small parts, only small actors,” my dad would tell me...
December 23, 2016
Mending The Torn Curtain: A Documentary Film About the First International Yiddish Theatre Festival
Montreal prides itself on being the city of festivals. It is home to the world’s largest, if not the most prestigious, jazz festival, and the largest, and maybe the most prestigious, comedy festival.
November 9, 2016
Dragging the Netherlands into a Global World: Yiddish Theatre and the Ansky Society
The Netherlands never established a permanent Yiddish theatre, but it did establish the Ansky Society
October 24, 2016
Franz Kafka’s Vagabond Stars
On February 18 1912, a Prague businessman and little-known German-language writer named Franz Kafka introduced an evening of Yiddish literary recitations in the city’s Jewish Town Hall.
September 29, 2016
A Yiddish Musical That Never Was
Camp Boiberik opened in the 1920s and closed in 1979, and if you will indulge a momentary digression from the topic, allow me to illustrate the importance of this camp for our subject.
September 16, 2016
When History Belonged to the Opera Writers
History belonged to the opera writers. First Goldfaden, and later Hurwitz and Lateiner and their followers, owned the franchise on Jewish history.
August 31, 2016
Fyvush
My first real-life encounter with Fyvush Finkel coincided roughly with my entry into the world of New York Yiddish theatre.
August 3, 2016
Breaking News: Yiddish Theatre Makes Money
Reviews of Avrom Goldfaden’s productions are notorious for critics’ snarky pot-shots, huffy asides, and sniffy evaluations.
July 27, 2016
How I Rediscovered Di goldene kale (The Golden Bride)
Michael Ochs on rediscovering the 1923 Yiddish operetta Di goldene kale by Joseph Rumshinsky.
April 26, 2016
Lekoved pesach
Adapting to the abundance of the New World, Passover developed into a secular festival for shopping and entertainment.
April 13, 2016
Should a Married Woman Visit a Yiddish Music Hall?
. Why would it be a problem if someone went to a music hall simply to have some fun? In the early 1900s, the answer was complicated.
March 7, 2016
Rare Yiddish Manuscripts from Helsinki Performed Again
Among the dusty heaps of thousands of documents sat a tall pile of Yiddish theatre manuscripts from first half of the 20th century.
February 19, 2016
Yiddish Theatre in Denmark, 1906-56
In 1912, a Jewish tailor left Imperial Russia for Denmark.
February 8, 2016
Uncle Ed, Yiddish Theatre Impresario
“My Uncle Ed was a Yiddish theatre impresario,” my friend Martha mentioned casually, as we were busy prepping for an event at our local Yiddish organization.
January 19, 2016
A Tribute to Sonia Lizaron
Arnold Zable is an award winning writer, storyteller, educator, and human rights advocate.
January 4, 2016
Boris Thomashefsky and Aaron Lebedeff
A few years ago, while roaming the open stacks of the Stanford University Libraries, I came across a copy of Thomashefsky’s memoir.
December 17, 2015
Interview: Indecent Playwright Paula Vogel and Director Rebecca Taichman
Joel interviews Paula Vogel and Rebecca Taichman about the drama Indecent, which premiered at the Yale Repertory Theatre.
December 4, 2015
Six Degrees of Yankev Blayfer
Yankev Blayfer. Sonia Alomis. Leola Vendorf. Baruch Lumet. Wolf Barzel. Who are these figures and what is their place in history?
November 17, 2015
The Sholem Asch Festival: Poland Rediscovers a Yiddish Dramatist
Every two years around this time I visit the Polish town of Kutno, for the Jewish festival named after my great-grandfather, the Yiddish writer Sholem Asch. He was born there in 1880 in a single-story wooden house on one of the town’s main streets. Asch left Kutno as a teenager, having grown weary of his religious studies, […]
October 26, 2015
Yiddish Lives, Smirks, and Breathes: Restoring Community Theatre into Yiddish History
Diving off of the raised proscenium stage, I don a fish mask and begin to swim through the audience. “Vu zaynen di fish?” (Where are the fish?).
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.
February 4, 2015
Goldfaden’s Rules for Yiddish Actors
In 1888, the first school for Yiddish actors was supposed to open in New York. It never did.
January 29, 2015
Ola Lillith’s Edgy, Avant-Garde Yiddish Cabaret
I first discovered Ola Lilith while researching for my band Mappamundi’s Cabaret Warsaw CD.
January 21, 2015
The Talented Mr Rotblat and His Micrographic Tribute to Jacob Gordin
This is the story behind an exquisite portrait of a Yiddish dramatist.
January 13, 2015
Yiddish Theatre Posters of the 1890s
The New York Public Library’s Digital Collection includes Yiddish theatre posters dating back more than a hundred years.
January 5, 2015
The Chasidim Ball
Between 1921 and 1933, a “Chasidim Ball” was held to raise funds for Poale Zion, or for the Peretz Shule. But why?
December 21, 2014
“Entertainment”?
Over the past year, as time has permitted, I’ve been revisiting the subject of theatre in the Warsaw Ghetto.
December 15, 2014
Advice from Sidney Lumet’s Yiddish Actor Dad
Sidney Lumet was a legendary director. He was also a child actor in the Yiddish theatre.
December 14, 2014
An Amateur Yiddish Theater in Cairo
David Mazower is the Bibliographer and Editorial Director at the Yiddish Book Center and the co-editor with Aaron Lansky of the Center's English-language magazine Pakn Treger.