“theater”

Blog

Review of The Gospel According to Chaim by Mikhl Yashinsky

Eyshe Beirich

Eyshe Beirich reviews Mikhl Yashinsky's original Yiddish play Di psure loyt khayim.

Pedagogy

Shulamis from the Stage to the Classroom

Nahma Sandrow

Suggestions for instructors who might want to teach Shulamis (1881) by Avrom Goldfadn in their Jewish history, culture, or literature classrooms.

Review

Review of Nick Underwood's Yiddish Paris: Staging Nation and Community in Interwar France

Sarah Biskowitz

Today's Yiddishists can find historical models for politically-engaged cultural activism in Nick Underwood's account of interwar Paris.

Pedagogy

Tsugob: Urke Nachalnik on the Yiddish Stage

Jonah Lubin

Last spring we published Jon­ah Lubin's overview and bibliography of "Master Criminal" Urke Nachalnik. Now, he has expanded this research to discuss how Urke Nachalnik was represented in popular Yiddish culture.

Blog

אָנקומען /Arrived/Przybyli: Searching for Love and Home in a Street Performance

Ula Urszula Chowaniec

Spanish/Lithuanian artists Adrian Schvarzstein and Jūratė Širvytė-Rukštelė delivered an interactive, dynamic, wordless performance, titled אָנקומען /Arrived/Przybyli in the Kraków Street Theatre Festival. 

Blog

An ovnt bay Littmans: A Night at Detroit’s Historical Yiddish Theater

Nadav Pais-Greenapple

Detroit’s Yiddish theater, despite its distance from the center of American Yiddish culture in New York, was home to big personalities and bigger stars.

Article

Kol Nidre and the Making of the Jewish Theatre Audience

Ruthie Abeliovich

Focusing on Abraham M. Sharkansky’s 1896 play Kol nidre, oder di geheyme yidn in madrid (Kol Nidre, or the Secret Jews of Madrid), this article examines how, on both sides of the Atlantic, the Kol Nidre prayer performed in the Yiddish theatre reflected profound modern and migratory cultural transgressions, between categories such as high and low, religion and entertainment, the holy and the theatrical.

Texts & Translation

באַנקראָט

Bankrupt

Katie Brown

Translation by Vivi Lachs

Vivi Lachs translates Katie Brown's Bankrot, a family drama set in London's East End. 

Blog

A Night at the (Yiddish) Opera: Bas Sheve’s North American Premiere

Julie Sharff

As the biannual Ashkenaz festival kicked off, so did the North American Premiere of Bas Sheve, a Yiddish opera, on August 31, 2022.

Pedagogy

Let's not wait!: Introducing preschoolers to Yiddish through Leah Hoffman's Alefbeys

Beth Dwoskin

In this piece Beth Dwoskin explains how Leah Hoffman's play about the Yiddish alphabet can be adapted for children's classes today. She presents her English translation of the play alongside a recording of the alefbeys song in English.

Texts & Translation

געלט

Money

Morris Gisnet

Translation by Max H. Weinreich

An excerpt from the play Gelt by Morris Gisnet. 

Pedagogy

Labzik Assembled! Bringing Radical 1930s Yiddish Children’s Literature to the Virtual Stage

Cameron Bernstein

Cameron Bernstein interviews director Jake Krakovsky about his bilingual Yiddish-English puppet film “Labzik: Tales of a Clever Pup” based on short stories by Chaver Paver.

Blog

Speaking Through Shylock's Lips: The Merchant of Venice on The Yiddish Stage

Eve Romm

Eve Romm traces the many approaches to resolving the problem of Shylock on the Yiddish stage, from apologetics to heroism.

Article

Musical Comedy as Compromise Formation: Judío and Judía (1926), by Ivo Pelay

Claire Solomon

Ivo Pelay's 1926 plays Judío and Judía, “Jew” and “Jewess,” thematize anxiety not only about the Argentineity of Jews, but also about the Jewishness of Argentina: the promise of assimilation and the threat of subversion.

Blog

Community, Continuity, and Celebration: Kids and Yiddish Then and Now

Avram Mlotek

Avram Mlotek shares the personal, family, and artistic roots of the Folksbiene's online pandemic-era Kids and Yiddish reunion show this spring.

Interview

Acting Like a Jewish Witch: An Interview with The Sorceress Star Mikhl Yashinsky

C. Tova Markenson

Mikhl Yashinsky discusses his starring role as Bobe Yakhne in the Folksbiene production of The Sorceress, featuring an In geveb first — a Yiddish drag performance recorded just for our lucky readers!

Article

Shylock’s Jewish Way of Speaking

Nahma Sandrow

What if Shylock spoke Yiddish? One experimental production of Shakespeare's "The Merchant of Venice" did just that.

Blog

Call for Papers: Murder, Lust, and Laughter, or, Shund Theatre

The Editors

We are seeking submissions for a special issue on Yiddish popular theater.

Review

Review of The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Stage by Alyssa Quint

Debra Caplan

The Rise of the Modern Yiddish Stage is a monumental work that tells the story of Avrom Goldfaden, Yiddish theater's most central, confounding, and enigmatic figure while also situating it in the context of Yiddish theater’s initial development. 

Blog

Jewish Victims, Jewish Virtue, but Not Much Jewish History: A Review of The Argentinian Prostitute Play

Tova Benjamin

Tova Benjamin reviews The Argentinian Prostitute Play, a new play by Reuven Glezer staged as part of the 2019 Broadway Bound Theatre Festival. 

Blog

Another 'Tradition Omission': Reconsidering Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish

Shaina Hammerman

Fiddler’s Yiddish translation merits discussion in The New York Times, not as history or metaphor, but as a window into how Jews tell stories about themselves.