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.
Isidor Goldenberg (1870–?) was a Romanian Jewish singer and actor, prominent in Yiddish theater in the late 19th and early 20th century.
Joseph Green, born Yoysef Grinberg, a.k.a. Josef Grünberg, Joseph Greenberg and Joseph Greene, a Polish-born Jew who emigrated to the United States in 1924, was an actor in Yiddish theater and one of the few directors of Yiddish-language films. He made four Yiddish films that he shot on location in Poland, beginning in 1935: Yidl mitn fidl, Der Purimspiler, Mamele, and A brivele der mamen. He also wrote the screenplays for the films, except for Mamele.
David Kessler (1860–1920) 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.
Alexander Asro was a film and theatre actor. He was a member of the Vilna Troupe and appeared in several comedic films in the United States.
Joseph Rumshinsky (1881–1956) was a Jewish composer born near Vilna, Lithuania. Along with Sholom Secunda, Alexander Olshanetsky and Abraham Ellstein, he is considered one of the "big four" composers and conductors of American Yiddish theater.
Shloyme Prizament (1889-1973), Jewish composer, actor in the Yiddish theater, and badkhn, son of Moyshe Prizament.
Igor S. Korntayer was a Polish Jewish actor, lyricist, poet, and coupletist. He is best known for the Yiddish Tango song Vu ahin zol ikh geyn? , for which he is usually credited for writing new Yiddish lyrics.
Jacob Waxman, or in Yiddish Yankev Vaksman was a Yiddish playwright who wrote dramas and tragedies, as well as operettas; he also dramatized novels and stories for the Yiddish stage. His operettas include Der libling fun froyen, Malvinke vil azoy, and Di sheyne Berta, which were orchestrated by Yitskhak Shlosberg (1877–1930).
Zalmen Zylbercweig was a historian of Yiddish theater. He is best known as the author of the six-volume Leksikon fun yidishn teater, the largest reference work on the history of Yiddish theatre.
Leksikon fun yidishn teater is a Yiddish language reference encyclopedia compiled by Zalmen Zylbercweig, assisted by Jacob Mestel on two volumes.
Pepi Litman was a cross-dressing female Yiddish vaudeville singer associated with the Broderzinger movement. Litman led a popular traveling theater troupe around Europe, performing highly satirical songs while costumed as a male Hasidic Jew. Because she frequently performed while costumed as a young boy or as a male dandy, she is considered a proto-drag king performer. Pepi Litman made numerous 78rpm recordings which capture her energetic and virtuosic singing style, and which also stand as a document of Jewish life in Eastern Europe.
Solomon Smulewitz, sometimes known by the anglicized name Solomon Small, was a Russian-born American tenor, folk poet, badchen, playwright, recording artist, and composer for the yiddish theatre. He wrote hundreds of songs, many of which were recorded during the heyday of the Yiddish-language recording industry in the 1910s and 1920s in New York.
Simon Paskal was a Romanian-born American Yiddish Theater actor and tenor who recorded numerous Yiddish-language discs during the early twentieth century.
Ben Bonus was a prominent American Yiddish theatre and Broadway actor and Yiddish language singer of the twentieth century. He and his wife Mina Bern were credited with keeping Yiddish theatre alive in United States during the 1960s and 1970s.
Joseph Brody was an American Jewish composer who wrote for the Yiddish theatre as well as liturgical Jewish works. He taught George Gershwin and was a friend of Yossele Rosenblatt. His daughter, Estelle Brody, was an actress.
Philip Laskowsky was a Polish-born American composer, arranger, bandleader, comedian and actor of the Yiddish theatre. He collaborated with a number of well-known figures of the American Yiddish theatre such as Boris Thomashefsky, Louis Gilrod, Isidore Lillian, Jacob Jacobs, and Rubin Doctor. He is sometimes credited with having written the music for the well-known Yiddish song Oyfn veg shteyt a boym, although this is disputed.
Zeydl Shmuel-Yehuda Helman, who often published under the pen name Hazman (הזמ״ן), was a Romanian Jewish actor, songwriter, journalist, and educator. In addition to working as an actor in the Yiddish theatre in Romania and in the United States, he wrote and published a large number of Yiddish theatre songs which were widely performed in the late nineteenth century, making him one of the earliest popular songwriters in the genre.
Regina Zuckerberg was an Austrian-born Yiddish theatre actor and Prima donna who had a career both in Europe and the United States.
Gustave "Gus" Goldstein was a Romanian-born American Yiddish theatre actor, songwriter, vaudevillian, and recording artist. During the boom in Yiddish music recording in the 1910s and 1920s, he recorded dozens of 78-rpm discs of comedy and theatre music for Victor, Brunswick, Emerson, OKeh, and Columbia Records, collaborating with many celebrities of contemporary Jewish music such as Naftule Brandwein, Abe Schwartz, Louis Gilrod, and Clara Gold.
