Yiddish New York 2024

Name: The Lullaby of Second Avenue: Yiddish Urban Theatre Workshop
Start: 2024-12-23T09:30:00-0500
End: 2024-12-23T10:45:00-0500

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Monday December 23, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST

525 - Hebrew Union College

What’s that racket down at the street corner? Someone hawking knishes two for a nickel? Crying out the latest news from the Forverts or the Tog? Getting into fisticuffs over the relative merits of Sholem Aleichem or Peretz — or Paula Prilutsky!? Or is it maybe… just maybe… the call of someone drawing audiences into the glittering, raucous, seltzer-spattered and sunflower seed-strewn space of the Yiddish theatre: “Kumt arayn! Kumt arayn! Tragedye, komedye, we’ve got it all!” In this workshop: it is all of these together. Writers for the Yiddish stage in New York City took inspiration from the overfull metropolis they called their new home, all its startling sounds and smells and sights, as they wrote their urban-set comedies and dramas for the enjoyment of the teeming hordes of the Lower East Side. We will take inspiration from the same city they did, and in which these plays are set, as we imagine their motivating forces—the miseries of the sweatshop, the delights of the dairy café—while examining a series of powerful theatrical scenes and playing them out together. Our understanding of these play excerpts will be enhanced by lively nontheatrical documents of the time that give us further insight into the milieu of these works. A performance will be given in the student concert at the end by those who are keen to show their stuff before a crowd, though only those who feel called to need participate in that. Scripts will be provided in transliteration with word-by-word translation provided and acted in Yiddish, though no background in the language or in acting is required — just a curiosity about the Yiddish theatre of the city, and a desire to lend your own wild voice to its unearthly cacophony.

Speakers

Mikhl Yashinsky

Born in Detroit, Mikhl Yashinsky (theater) graduated with a degree in Modern European history and literature from Harvard, and works as an actor-singer, playwright, and translator in New York City. He performed the title role in his own play Di psure loyt khaim (The Gospel According... Read More →

Monday December 23, 2024 9:30am - 10:45am EST
525 - Hebrew Union College 1 West 4th Street, New York, NY 10012

Yiddish Theatre (On-Site)

Yiddish New York 2024

Mikhl Yashinsky

Attendees (4)

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