| On Second Avenue | |
|---|---|
| Music | Various |
| Lyrics | Various |
| Book | Various |
| Productions | 1987 Off-Broadway 2005 Off-Broadway |
On Second Avenue is a Yiddish American musical theatre production which looks back at the heyday of Yiddish Theater, especially in the Yiddish Theater District in Manhattan's East Village on Second Avenue.
Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos, love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals.
Manhattan, , is the most densely populated of the five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state of New York. Manhattan serves as the city's economic and administrative center, cultural identifier, and historical birthplace. The borough consists mostly of Manhattan Island, bounded by the Hudson, East, and Harlem rivers; several small adjacent islands; and Marble Hill, a small neighborhood now on the U.S. mainland, physically connected to the Bronx and separated from the rest of Manhattan by the Harlem River. Manhattan Island is divided into three informally bounded components, each aligned with the borough's long axis: Lower, Midtown, and Upper Manhattan.
The East Village is a neighborhood on the east side of Manhattan, New York City, within Lower Manhattan. It is roughly defined as the area east of the Bowery and Third Avenue, between 14th Street on the north and Houston Street on the south. The East Village contains three subsections: Alphabet City, in reference to the single-letter-named avenues that are located to the east of First Avenue; Little Ukraine, near Second Avenue and 6th and 7th Streets; and Bowery, located around the street of the same name.
The original 1987 production opened at the Norman Thomas Theater on the Lower East Side, and a revival produced in 2005 by the Folksbiene opened on the Upper West Side. Both productions were off-Broadway. The revue was put together by Zalmen Mlotek and Moishe Rosenfeld as a sequence of skits, and songs with dialogue in English and songs in Yiddish. The revue features songs from Yiddish theatre greats like Abraham Goldfaden. The original cast was led by Mary Soreanu and the revival cast by Mike Burstyn to critical acclaim. The revival was nominated for two Drama Desk Awards for 2005 - Best Revival for Folksbiene, and Outstanding Actor for Mike Burstyn.
The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a neighborhood in the southeastern part of the New York City borough of Manhattan, roughly located between the Bowery and the East River, and Canal Street and Houston Street. Traditionally an immigrant, working class neighborhood, it began rapid gentrification in the mid-2000s, prompting the National Trust for Historic Preservation to place the neighborhood on their list of America's Most Endangered Places.
The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, commonly known as NYTF, is a professional theater company in New York City which produces both Yiddish plays and plays translated into Yiddish, in a theater equipped with simultaneous superscript translation into English. The company's leadership consists of Broadway Producer CEO Christopher Massimine and artistic director Zalmen Mlotek. The board is chaired by Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, principal at Bernstein Global Wealth Management.
The Upper West Side, sometimes abbreviated UWS, is a neighborhood in the borough of Manhattan, New York City, bounded by Central Park and the Hudson River, and West 59th Street and West 110th Street.
Two Yiddish music albums by the same name were released by Jan Peerce in 1964 (the album is actually called On 2nd Avenue), and by the Hester Street Troupe - but they have no relation to the show.
Jan Peerce was an American operatic tenor. Peerce was an accomplished performer on the operatic and Broadway concert stages, in solo recitals, and as a recording artist. He is the father of film director Larry Peerce.
