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  19   February 2, 1953
They build the "National Theatre." -- Louis Minsky, the philanthropist. -- Osip Dymow is brought to New York. -- His "Eternal Wanderer," "Slave of the People," and "Bronx Express." -- Sholem Asch.
 
 
 
  20   February 5, 1953
David Pinski -- His great success, "Yankl der shmid." -- His "Oytser (Treasure)," is played by the writer with Rudolph Schildkraut. -- Jacob P. Adler.
 
 
 
  21   February 9, 1953
David Kessler. -- His simplicity, his naturalness, in acting and in life. --Boris Thomashefsky. -- His unnaturalness on the stage and in life. -- A visit with him in the country. -- His dog Jack.
 
 
 
  22   February 12, 1953
Leon Blank and Regina Prager. -- Blank brings warmth onto the stage. -- He warms the actors and the public. -- The pious Regina Prager with her wonderful voice. -- In the middle of a performance, one learns about the Russian Revolution.
 
 
 
  23   February 16, 1953
Czar Nicholas's priest Iliodor comes to America. -- He brings Yiddish actors and reads a bad play for them. -- Maurice Schwartz as a younger man.  -- The birth of the Yiddish Art Theatre.
 
 
 
  24   February 19, 1953
The name, "Yiddish Art Theatre," was given by the people. -- Maurice Schwartz excels in Sholem Aleichem's "Teyve the Dairyman." -- The large productions of l.J. Singer's "Yoshe Kalb" and "Brothers Ashkenazi."
 
 
 
  25   February 23, 1953
His own life story. -- He is born to a furrier in Vilna. -- His father was a bit of a musician. -- His mother also knew how to sing. -- For the new year he was a soloist in the Vilna city synagogue. -- At the age of sixteen he was a conductor for the great cantors. -- Israel Zangwill paid for my music lessons.
 
 
 
  26   February 26, 1953
The success of the operetta, "The Broken Violin." -- The "Five Frankfurters" is turned into an operetta with the name, "Di chazante." -- The operetta, "The Rabbi's Melody," is born.
 
 
 
  27   March 2, 1953
Aaron Lebedeff. -- They say about him that he did not enter but danced to America. -- Molly Picon  in Lodz. -- She excites the audience with her charm.
 
 
 
  28   March 5, 1953
The great success of the "Dybbuk" in Warsaw. -- A visit with Esther Rachel Kaminska. -- She is different. -- She is a grandmother, talking about her children and grandchildren, no longer the former glory.
 
 
 
  29   March 9, 1953
The Vilna Troupe in "Dybbuk." -- I see the play twice. -- I know the play, and they play unforgettably. -- Isidore Edelstein is also enthusiastic; He wants to buy the rights for "Dybbuk," but Maurice Schwartz already bought it.
 
 
 
  30   March 12, 1953
Sara Adler. -- She speaks on the stage like they speak in life. -- She is a great actress, but they call her Adler's wife. -- Molly Picon plays mainly in New York. -- Her great success in "Yankele."
 
 
 
  31   March 16, 1953
Yosl Edelstein. -- As such he engages Paul Muni for his theatre. -- Samuel  Goldinburg. -- He is quickly recognized as a star.
 
 
 
  32   March 19, 1953
Menasha Skulnik. -- As he makes his audition for the union.-- Nobody knows him. -- He excels in the art plays. -- As he becomes a star. -- The difficulties of advertising stars.
 
 
 
  33   March 23, 1953
Lucy Levin. -- How quickly she becomes a star. -- We believe that her rapid success shortened her years. -- How to "break in" an operetta. -- The author does not recognize the play and is ashamed to say so.
 
 
 
  34   March 26, 1953
Samuel Rosenstein. -- The Apollo of Yiddish theatre. -- A lonely life in old age. -- Why do you need a conductor?
 
 
 
  35   March 30, 1953
Dramaturges, playwrights and fixers. -- To fix a play is a skill. -- To write a play is an art. -- The true dramaturges are deprived of theatre.
 
 
 
  36   April 2, 1953
The three periods of Yiddish theatre. -- The uphill period, the golden period, and the downhill period.

 
 
 
   


 
1   December 1, 1952
The beginning of the Yiddish Theatre. -- Weary workers sing in abundance like free birds in the woods. -- Boris Thomashefsky sings at work in a cigar factory. -- The first theatre troupe is brought over from London and plays, "Di kishuf-makherin (The Sorceress)," in a hall. -- German Jews want to hinder the playing of Yiddish theatre.
-- Boris Thomashefsky plays women's roles.

 
 
 
 
2   December 4, 1952
Boris Thomashefsky writes a play. -- Mogulesco comes to New York. Jacob P. Adler is brought over from London. -- Abraham Goldfaden comes to New York and receives a cold welcome from the actors.
 
 
 
 
3   December 8, 1952
The competition between the Yiddish theatres. -- Joseph Lateiner and Professor Horowitz write plays, taken from German. -- In the plays the heroes speak deytshmerish. -- Actors who do not know any German carry German newspapers in their pockets.
 
 
 
 
4   December 11, 1952
The effect of Jacob Gordin. -- In his plays they must speak Yiddish and not speak any of their own prose. -- He receives sixty dollars for his first play, but he receives five dollars a night for playing the role of a pristav.
 
 
 
 
5   December 15, 1952
Jacob Gordin's plays compete with the operettas. -- Adler, Kessler and Thomashefsky play together, but not for long. -- Keni Lipzin. -- The founding of the Actors' Union -- Joseph Barondess.
 
 
 
 
6   December 18, 1952
The principle explanation for the Actors' Union. -- Max Gabel. The music halls.
-- William Shakespeare and Joseph Lateiner are played in one day. --M. Katz and Leon Kobrin have written plays.

 
 
 
 
7   December 22, 1952
Z. Libin as a playwright, his humor. -- Shomer's very successful play, "Emigrants." -- He had earned only one-hundred dollars for himself. -- Mogulesko's huge success in "Emigrants." -- Bessie Thomashefsky plays Mogulesco's role when Mogulesco is ill.
 
 
 
 
8   December 25, 1952
My first days in America. -- The death of Sophie Karp. -- The actor Finkel, and his wife Emma. -- My visit with Shomer.
 
 
 
 
9   December 29, 1952
My first meeting with Boris Thomashefsky. -- I speak Russian with Jacob P. Adler. -- Sophie Tucker as a waitress in a restaurant.
 
 
 
 
10   January 1, 1953
The two famous actresses Berta Kalich and Keni Lipzin. -- Berta Kalich sings in a chorus of the Lemberg Temple. -- Plays in Gimpel's Theatre, and then in the Romanian National Theatre. -- Jacob P. Adler discovers Keni Lipzin in a small, Russian town.
-- She becomes famous in Gordin's plays.
 
 
 
 
11   January 5, 1953
Professor Horowitz. -- His play, "Ben Hador," was the greater success. -- He was one of the most successful playwrights, but he became ill and lost his memory with age and ended his life in poverty. -- Broadway takes from the Yiddish theatre.
 
 
 
 
12   January 8, 1953
Yiddish actors who play on the English stage. -- Charles Cohan, Tornberg, Jacob P. Adler, Bertha Kalich and David Kessler. The Kalich is a great success, and David Kessler is a great failure in English.
 
 
 
 
13   January 12, 1953
Sholem Aleichem arrives in America. -- Theatre managers race over to him. -- His lectures are admired, but his plays fall through. -- Solotorefsky saves theatres with his melodramas. -- They arrest actors for playing on Sundays. -- Actors want to be arrested in order to have their pictures in the newspapers.
 
 
 
 
14   January 15, 1953
Anna Held, Ziegfeld's wife, who Jacob P. Adler taught to play theatre. -- The great comic, Sigmund Mogulesco, can't tell any jokes in life. -- He used to laugh at Fishkind's jokes.
 
 
 
 
15   January 19, 1953
The new manager, Max R. Wilner. -- Esther Rachel Kaminska. -- We build the Second Avenue Theatre. -- Theatre patriotten speak a lot about Maurice Schwartz.
 
 
 
 
16   January 22, 1953
Boris Thomashefsky gives plays adapted for the greenhorn. -- Bessie Thomashefsky "starves" in the greenhorn plays. -- Thomashefsky ends the policy and begins to give "pintele-yid" plays. -- The great success of "Pintele yid."
 
 
 
 
17   January 26, 1953
The German Irving Place Theatre, where they used to play the famous German actors used to play. -- Rudolph Schildkraut plays in the German theatre and becomes well-known as an actor. -- Thomashefsky engages him for his Yiddish theatre. -- He creates a furor in "Eikele mazik" by Abraham Shomer.
 
 
 
 
18   January 29, 1953
Bessie Thomashefsky stands out in Dymow's "Shema Yisrael (Hear, O Israel)."
-- Yushkevitch's "Kenig" was once played for Adler in one theatre, and for Thomashefsky in a second theatre. -- The success of Kornblit's "Chantshe in America."

 
 
 
 


 

 




A big Museum of the Yiddish Theatre "Thank You!" goes out to all those at the Forward who work tirelessly to give their valued readers a sense of what
Jewish life and culture has to offer them on a daily basis, and how wonderfully significant and eloquent the Yiddish language can be. Long live the Forward!
 

All translations in this online exhibition can be attributed to the Museum's founder and Director, Steven Lasky. It is surely a labor of love to preserve Jewish history!

 

 

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