Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in or around 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters and other tales by Sholem Aleichem. The story centers on Tevye, a milkman in the village of Anatevka, who attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon his family's lives. He must cope with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters who wish to marry for love; their choices of husbands are successively less palatable for Tevye. An edict of the tsar eventually evicts the Jews from their village.
Isadore "Dore" Schary was an American playwright, director, and producer for the stage and a prolific screenwriter and producer of motion pictures. He directed one feature film, Act One, the film biography of his friend, playwright and theater director Moss Hart. He became head of production at Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and replaced Louis B. Mayer as president of the studio in 1951.
Harold Jacob "Hecky" Rome was an American composer, lyricist, and writer for musical theater.
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.
Dan Jacobson was a South African novelist, short story writer, critic and essayist of Lithuanian Jewish descent.
Abraham "Abe" Ellstein was an American composer, bandleader and recording artist in the Yiddish theatre and Yiddish popular music milieu. Along with Sholom Secunda, Joseph Rumshinsky, and Alexander Olshanetsky, Ellstein was one of the "big four" composers of his era in New York City's Yiddish Theater District scene. His musical Yidl Mitn Fidl became one of the greatest hits of Yiddish-language cinema.
I Can Get It for You Wholesale is a musical, produced by David Merrick, music and lyrics by Harold Rome, and book by Jerome Weidman, based on his 1937 novel of the same title. Its 1962 production marked the Broadway debut of 19-year-old Barbra Streisand, who was nominated for the Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. The story is set in the New York City Garment District in 1937, during the Great Depression, and the songs utilize traditional Jewish harmonies evocative of the setting and the period of the show.
Sunrise at Campobello is a 1958 play by American producer and writer Dore Schary based on U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's struggle with polio. The film version was released in 1960.
Menasha Skulnik was an American actor, primarily known for his roles in Yiddish theater in New York City. Skulnik was also popular on radio, playing Uncle David on The Goldbergs for 19 years. He made many television and Broadway appearances as well, including successful runs in Clifford Odets's The Flowering Peach and Harold Rome's The Zulu and the Zayda.
Pins and Needles (1937) is a musical revue with a book by Arthur Arent, Marc Blitzstein, Emmanuel Eisenberg, Charles Friedman, David Gregory, Joseph Schrank, Arnold B. Horwitt, John Latouche, and Harold Rome, and music and lyrics by Rome. The title Pins and Needles was created by Max Danish, long-time editor of the International Ladies Garment Workers Union (ILGWU)'s newspaper Justice.
Chu Chem is a musical with a book by Ted Allen, lyrics by Jim Haines and Jack Wohl, and music by Mitch Leigh.
Mount Hebron is a Jewish cemetery located in Flushing, Queens, New York, United States. It was founded in 1903 as the Jewish section of Cedar Grove Cemetery, and occupies the vast majority of the grounds at Cedar Grove. The cemetery is on the former Spring Hill estate of colonial governor Cadwallader Colden. Mount Hebron is arranged in blocks, which are then split up into sections or society grounds. Sections were originally sold mainly to families or Jewish community groups such as landsmanshaftn, mutual aid societies, and burial societies. For instance, Mount Hebron is known for having a section reserved for people who worked in New York City's Yiddish theater industry. While this type of organization is common for American Jewish cemeteries, Mount Hebron has an especially diverse range of society grounds. About 226,000 people have been buried in Mount Hebron since it opened.
Bruce Adler was an American Broadway actor. After debuting on the Broadway stage in the 1979 revival of Oklahoma!, he went on to a career that saw him nominated for Tony Awards as Best Featured Actor in a Musical for Those Were the Days (1991) and Crazy For You (1992). His film work was limited to voice work in animated films, notably providing the singing voice for the peddler of the 1992 Disney film Aladdin and the 1996 sequel Aladdin and the King of Thieves.
Miriam Kressyn, one of the "First Ladies of the Yiddish Theater", acted and sang on stage, film and radio; she wrote plays as well.
Julius Adler was a Jewish-American actor, writer, and director in Yiddish theater.
The Yiddish Theatre District, also called the Jewish Rialto and the Yiddish Realto, was the center of New York City's Yiddish theatre scene in the early 20th century. It was located primarily on Second Avenue, though it extended to Avenue B, between Houston Street and East 14th Street in the East Village in Manhattan. The District hosted performances in Yiddish of Jewish, Shakespearean, classic, and original plays, comedies, operettas, and dramas, as well as vaudeville, burlesque, and musical shows.
Village East by Angelika is a movie theater at 189 Second Avenue, on the corner with 12th Street, in the East Village of Manhattan in New York City. Part of the former Yiddish Theatre District, the theater was designed in the Moorish Revival style by Harrison Wiseman and built from 1925 to 1926 by Louis Jaffe. In addition to Yiddish theatre, the theater has hosted off-Broadway shows, burlesque, and movies. Since 1991, it has been operated by Angelika Film Center as a seven-screen multiplex. Both the exterior and interior of the theater are New York City designated landmarks, and the theater is on the National Register of Historic Places.
Amerike – The Golden Land is a musical with book, lyrics, and song by Moishe Rosenfeld and Zalmen Mlotek. The show is in Yiddish and English depicting the journey of Jewish immigrants to the United States.
Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles is a 2019 American documentary film about the creation and significance of the 1964 musical Fiddler on the Roof. Directed by Max Lewkowicz, it features interviews with Fiddler creators such as Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick, Joseph Stein, and Harold Prince, as well as scholars, actors, and other musical theatre figures such as Stephen Sondheim and Lin-Manuel Miranda. The documentary includes rarely-seen footage of the original Broadway cast as well as interviews with creators, actors, theatrical figures, and scholars.
Prior to his career in social criticism, the American writer Paul Goodman had a prolific career in avant-garde literature, including some 18 works for the stage. His plays, mostly written in the 1940s, were typically experimental. Their professional productions were either unsuccessful or flopped, including the three productions staged with The Living Theatre in the 1950s and one with The American Place Theatre in 1966. His lack of recognition as a litterateur in the 1950s helped drive him to his successful career in social criticism in the 1960s.
