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Yiddish theatre consists of plays written and performed primarily by Jews in Yiddish, the language of the Central European Ashkenazi Jewish community. The range of Yiddish theatre is broad: operetta, musical comedy, and satiric or nostalgic revues; melodrama; naturalist drama; expressionist and modernist plays. At its height, its geographical scope was comparably broad: from the late 19th century until just before World War II, professional Yiddish theatre could be found throughout the heavily Jewish areas of Eastern and East Central Europe, but also in Berlin, London, Paris, Buenos Aires and New York City.
Abraham Goldfaden, also known as Avram Goldfaden, was a Russian-born Jewish poet, playwright, stage director and actor in the languages Yiddish and Hebrew, author of some 40 plays. Goldfaden is considered the father of modern Jewish theatre.
Jacob Pavlovich Adler was a Jewish actor and star of Yiddish theater, first in Odessa, and later in London and in New York City's Yiddish Theater District.
Boris Thomashefsky (1868–1939) was a Ukrainian-born Jewish singer and actor who became one of the biggest stars in Yiddish theater.
Sigmund Mogulesko — Yiddish: זעליק מאָגולעסקאָZelik Mogulesko, first name also sometimes spelled as Zigmund, Siegmund, Zelig, or Selig, last name sometimes spelled Mogulescu — was a singer, actor, and composer in the Yiddish theater in New York City. He was born in Kalarash, Bessarabia and began singing in the local synagogue choir. Before reaching adolescence, he was paid nearly three times what teachers made, to sing in the synagogue of Chişinău. Soon after moving to Bucharest, Romania, he was paid to sing in churches as well as synagogues, and started acting.
Israel (Yisrol) Grodner was one of the founding performers in Yiddish theater. A Lithuanian Jew who moved at the age of 16 to Berdichev, Ukraine, Russian Empire, the Broder singer and actor was in Iaşi, Romania in 1876 when Abraham Goldfaden recruited him as the first actor for what became the first professional Yiddish theater troupe. Jacob Adler remarks that as the only Lithuanian Jew in the early years of Yiddish theater, he deliberately spoke a different dialect of Yiddish on stage so that it would blend better with the other actors.
Shmendrik, oder Die komishe Chaseneh is an 1877 comedy by Abraham Goldfaden, one of the earliest and most enduring pieces in Yiddish theater. The title role of Shmendrik was originally written for the young Sigmund Mogulesko, and derived from a character Mogulesko did when auditioning for Goldfaden earlier that year. The role was first played by Jacob/Yankel Katzman with great reviews. The role was later famously played by actress Molly Picon.
Jacob Michailovitch Gordin was a Russian-born American playwright active in the early years of Yiddish theater. He is known for introducing realism and naturalism into Yiddish theater.
Isidor Goldenberg (1870–?) was a Romanian Jewish singer and actor, prominent in Yiddish theater in the late 19th and early 20th century.
IsraelRosenberg founded the first Yiddish theater troupe in Imperial Russia.
Jacob Spivakofsky, a Russian Jew, was one of the first stars in the early years of Yiddish theater.
Moishe Finkel was a prominent figure in the early years of Yiddish theater. He was business partner first of Abraham Goldfaden and later of Sigmund Mogulesko and, for a time, was married to prima donna Annetta Schwartz. Together, they dominated Yiddish theatre in Bucharest in the early 1880s and in New York City in the late 1880s and into the 1890s, with a repertoire based mainly in the works of Joseph Lateiner and Moses Horowitz.
Sara Adler was a Russian-born Jewish actress in Yiddish theater who made her career mainly in the United States.
Annetta Schwartz was one of the first distinguished female performers in Yiddish theater. She and her sister Margaretta shared prima donna duties in Abraham Goldfaden's troupe in Romania beginning in 1877. Jacob Adler described the sisters as "absolutely respectable" women with classical training as singers. He also writes that when they performed in Odessa, Ukraine in the late 1870s, they had Paris dresses of a quality that had never been seen in that city.
Margeretta Schwartz was one of the first distinguished female performers in Yiddish theater. She and her sister Annetta shared prima donna duties in Abraham Goldfaden's troupe in Romania beginning in 1877. Jacob Adler described the sisters as "absolutely respectable" women with classical training as singers. He also writes that when they performed in Odessa, Ukraine in the late 1870s, they had Paris dresses of a quality that had never been seen in that city.
Sophia "Sonya"Adler, also known by her early stage name Sonya Michelson, was a Ukrainian actress who was one of the first women to perform in Yiddish theater in Imperial Russia. Later she became the first wife of actor Jacob Adler, with whom she relocated to London in 1883, after Yiddish theater was banned in Russia.
David Kessler was a prominent actor in the first great era of Yiddish theater. As a star Yiddish dramatic performer in New York City, he was the first leading man in Yiddish theater to dispense with incidental music.
Dinah Shtettin was an English-born Yiddish theater actress. She was the second wife of Jacob Adler, with whom she had a daughter, Celia in 1889; the couple divorced shortly thereafter. Despite acrimony between them, Shtettin went on to perform with Adler's troupe on the American Yiddish stage.
Pauline Edelstein was a Yiddish theatre actress.
Kalman Juvelier was an Austrian-born Yiddish theatre actor and manager, Broder singer, Tenor, and recording artist of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, who was active both in Europe and the United States. After emigrating to the United States in 1900, he became a key figure in the Yiddish theatre in New York, working with such notables as Boris Thomashefsky, David Kessler, Bertha Kalich and Jacob P. Adler and was director of the Hebrew Actor's Union as well as the Jewish Theatrical Alliance. From roughly 1905 to 1918, he recorded roughly 90 Yiddish language discs, mostly Yiddish theatre music, for most of the major record labels in the New York area.
References
- Adler, Jacob, A Life on the Stage: A Memoir, translated and with commentary by Lulla Rosenfeld, Knopf, New York, 1999, ISBN 0-679-41351-0. 68, 125, 203, 221.