Places of Performances
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 18, 2017
The Stones Outtake
An outtake from the play Indecent
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?”
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.
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, […]