Women on the Immigrant Yiddish Stage: Paths to Stardom
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Yiddish Civilization Lecture Series
Admission: Free |
Nina Warnke | Delivered in English.
Yiddish theater was one of the most dynamic cultural institutions of East European Jewish immigrants in New York during the decades around the turn of the twentieth century. It was also the only one that included women in significant numbers. However, for decades the leadership of some of the most successful companies were groups of men, including the male star, playwright, manager, or director. Female stars, or actresses with star ambitions were usually dependent on the male star-managers for roles. By the late 1890s, some women began seeking opportunities that would allow them more control of their repertoire and give them full star status, a trend that accelerated after 1900 and led to more instances of female stars headlining productions and several female-led theaters around World War I.
While traditionally historians of Yiddish theater have tended to look at its development through the lens of the two foundational playwrights Avrom Goldfaden and Jacob Gordin, and the actors (male and female) who supported their missions, this lecture will outline a reading of these decades through the prism of several female actors whose star ambitions led them to careers rarely described in historiographical accounts. Following the careers of these women illuminates shifting attitudes within society and the profession regarding gender and illustrates the significance of theatrical activity well beyond the flagship theaters on the Lower East Side.
About the Speaker
Nina Warnke is a scholar of Yiddish literature and culture with a focus on theater. Her research has concentrated on the intersection of immigrant Yiddish theater, cultural politics and the press, Yiddish reimaginations of Shylock on stage and in literature, Yiddish theater in a transnational context, and the role of gender in the Yiddish theater. Her most recent article, “New York Yiddish Star Actresses and their Self-Enactment in Memoirs” is forthcoming in Women on the Yiddish Stage, edited by Alyssa Quint and Amanda Seigel. Among her other scholarly publications are “Yiddish Shylocks in Theater and Literature,” (co-authored with Jeffrey Shandler), “Patriotn and Their Stars: Male Youth Culture in the Galleries of the New York Yiddish Theatre,” and “Going East: The Impact of American Yiddish Plays and Players on the Yiddish Stage in Czarist Russia, 1895-1914.
Nina has been teaching Yiddish language, literature, and culture at various universities around the US and is currently teaching at Gratz College and YIVO.