Yiddish theatre’s evolution is focus of NYC exhibition
Posted Mar 9, 2016 01:27:28 PM.
Last Updated Mar 9, 2016 02:15:32 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NEW YORK, N.Y. – Second Avenue on Manhattan’s Lower East Side was once nicknamed Yiddish Broadway.
An exhibition at the Museum of the City of New York showcases the growth of Yiddish theatre over a century from a thriving immigrant entertainment movement to its impact on Broadway.
“Yiddish Theater: From the Bowery to Broadway” opened Wednesday and runs through July 31.
Visitors will learn that the theatre entertained over 1.5 million first-and second-generation Eastern-European Jewish immigrants. The term Second Avenue gradually also encompassed Yiddish theatre in Brooklyn and Upper Manhattan.
The show spotlights its set designers and stars like Molly Picon (pih-KOHN’) and Stella Adler and their crossover to Broadway and film.
It also features Zero Mostel’s (mahs-TEHLZ’) Tevye (TEHV’-yay) costume from “Fiddler on the Roof” and set models by Tony-winning designer Boris Aronson.
