Dr. Nahshon’s “‘New York’s Yiddish Theater’ Explores a Fractious Heritage of Melodrama and Musicals”

“A DEFINITE if wobbly line connects the Yiddish theater of 19th-century Eastern Europe and the Lower East Side to the giants of modern American entertainment. It traces a long road from the ghettos and shtetls to Broadway and Hollywood and the likes of Marlon Brando and Barbra Streisand.

That connection is a major theme of an exhibition that opened this week at the Museum of the City of New York. With 250 posters, playbills, photographs, film clips, set designs, costumes and other artifacts, it shows how what began as traveling troupes performing for poor Jewish audiences in Europe turned into a major New York entertainment center that provided a vital escape for the Lower East Side’s sweatshop workers and pushcart peddlers at the start of the 20th century.”

Continue reading “‘New York’s Yiddish Theater’ Explores a Fractious Heritage of Melodrama and Musicals” in New York Times.