National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene Presents June Programming

(New York, NY)—This June, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (Folksbiene)—led by Zalmen Mlotek, Artistic Director, and Dominick Balletta, Executive Director—brings the stage to global audiences when Folksbiene! LIVE features one-night only events, including Maida Feingold’s “The Songs of Itzik Manger” and Vos-Ver-Vu: The Great Yiddish Theatre Quiz with Mikhl Yashinsky.

June also includes a rebroadcast of Budd Mishkin’s interview with legendary Broadway producer Emanuel “Manny” Azenberg; weekly 15-Minute Yiddish lessons led by Motl Didner; and, weekly Zalmen Mlotek’s Living Room Concerts.

Launched in March, Folksbiene! LIVE is an online celebration of Yiddish culture, featuring livestreamed theater, American Jewish performers, concerts, lectures, talks, and other events. Programming provides inspirational and entertaining experiences as cultural and arts venues across the country and world remain closed amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Stay tuned by subscribing to Folksbiene’s newsletter on its website and catch up on past episodes at nytf.org/live. Each episode is broadcast at nytf.org/live and on Folksbiene’s Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/folksbiene/.

Mark your calendars for a series of special events—held every Wednesday at 7:30 PM in June:

Wednesday, June 3

Maida Feingold’s "The Songs of Itzik Manger"

Maida Feingold has entertained audiences around the country with her unique interpretations of folk songs both in Yiddish and in English with a special emphasis on songs of social significance.

Wednesday, June 10

Conversations: From the Bronx to Broadway

A rebroadcast of a conversation with legendary Broadway Producer Emanuel “Manny” Azenberg, moderated by acclaimed journalist Budd Mishkin.

Wednesday, June 17

Vos-Ver-Vu: The Great Yiddish Theatre Quiz

Are you a shmendrik, a maven, or just cravin' for some education? Test your knowledge of Yiddish theatre and related topics (no prior knowledge necessary!) and play for prizes at an amusing quiz show prepared and hosted live by Yiddish theatre personality Mikhl Yashinsky. Laughs, trivia, a glittering tune or two—why stay away? Unlike questions you'll hear at the Great Yiddish Theatre Quiz, that's one you could not possibly answer...!

Wednesday, June 24

Eyner Aleyn: Great Yiddish Monologues

Comic and dramatic monologues from Moyshe Nadir, Mikhl Rosenberg, and selections from The Dybbuk by S. An-Sky. Featuring Motl Didner, Lea Kalisch, Rebecca Keren, and Eli Rosen.

Also, Folksbiene presents the following weekly events in June:

15-Minute Yiddish

Tuesday, June 2, 9, 16, 23, and 30 at 1:00 PM

A weekly lunch and learn with Folksbiene Associate Artistic Director Motl Didner, where adults can learn the basics of Yiddish conversation—no Yiddish experience necessary—in 15 minutes!

Zalmen Mlotek’s Living Room Concert

Thursday, June 4, 11, 18, and 25 at 7:30 PM

Zalmen Mlotek’s weekly Living Room Concerts this month feature: Songs of Love and Romance (June 4); More Love Songs (You Didn’t Know You Loved!) (June 11); A Joyful Sound! Songs of Celebration (June 18); and, Yiddish Theatre Favorites (June 25).

Bios of participants (in alphabetical order):

Veteran producer Emanuel “Manny” Azenberg’s career has spanned more than 50 years, 65 productions for Broadway, 25 Tony Award nominations and eight Tony Award wins. Following a stint in the U.S. Army, he started in theater in 1959, assisting in company management on Broadway. He became a producer with The Lion in Winter (1966) and won his first two Tony Awards for Ain’t Misbehavin’ (1978) and Children of a Lesser God (1980). Azenberg produced more than 20 of Neil Simon’s plays on Broadway, including The Sunshine Boys, Brighton Beach Memoirs, and Lost in Yonkers. He received a Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre in 2012.

Matthew “Motl” Didner is the Associate Artistic Director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene. Associate Director of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish (Winner of Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle and Lucille Lortel Awards) directed by Joel Grey, Co-director The Golden Bride (Drama Desk Award Nominated: Outstanding Revival of a Musical and Outstanding Direction of a Musical). Other directing credits include The Sorceress, Fyvush Finkel Live! (Drama Desk Award–nominated: Outstanding Musical Revue), Robert Brustein’s The King of Second Avenue, The Megile of Itzik Manger, The Pushcart Peddlers, The Marriage Contract. Yiddish coach An American Pickle starring Seth Rogen, The Immigrant at George Street Playhouse, and, New York City Opera’s Angels in America. Motl was an inaugural Translation Fellow at the Yiddish Book Center and teaches Yiddish language classes and theater workshops at the Workers Circle.

Maida Feingold has entertained audiences around the country with her unique interpretations of folk songs both in Yiddish and in English with a special emphasis on songs of social significance. She appeared on radio station WEVD in New York in a popular SingAlong series, as well as numerous appearances on WEVD’s Forward Hour, in addition to programs for groups in the New York metropolitan area, summer Yiddish music festivals in Central Park and Lincoln Center and a tour around the US with the Yiddish troupe headed by Ben Bonus and Mina Bern. For several summers, Maida was the folk singer in residence at a Jewish adult camp in upstate New York.

Lea Kalisch, born and raised in Switzerland, is a New York City and Minneapolis based actress, singer and dancer with a “chassidishe neshume.” Lea starred in several Off-Broadway Yiddish plays. In 2019 Lea performed her one-woman show In Love With A Dream! in the US and Switzerland, showcasing original material that spans from aggressive English rap to sultry Yiddish. In January, she released her provocative debut music video “Eshet Chayil of Hip Hop.” During the stay-at-home order, Lea's been creating funny self-produced quarantine videos found on her IG @leakalisch.

Rebecca Keren is a private educator and Rabbinical candidate. She has performed with National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene several times. A longtime collaborator with Elizabeth Swados, she has performed at LaMaMa ETC, JCC Manhattan, The Actors' Temple, Symphony Space, Town Hall, Baruch Performing Arts Center and more. BFA: NYU-Tisch.

Budd Mishkin has been a broadcast journalist for almost forty years. He joined CBS News Radio in March, 2019, as an anchor/correspondent. Mishkin spent 25 years as an anchor/reporter for NY1, New York City’s 24-hour television news channel. He was one of the station’s founding journalists in 1992. In 2003, he created NY1’s weekly series “One on 1 with Budd Mishkin”, profiling influential and intriguing New Yorkers from a wide range of fields. From 2003-2017, ‘One on 1” profiled 400 prominent New Yorkers: poets and politicians, athletes and artists, the old timers and the rising stars. In 2012, the New York Press Club honored “One on 1 with Budd Mishkin” with its coveted Reverend Mychal Judge Heart of New York award. Mishkin has also created and hosted close to 100 nights of conversation at some of the most prestigious venues in New York and beyond, including the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, for which he has interviewed Joel Grey and the creative team behind the Theatre's production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish and, more recently, Broadway producer Manny Azenberg.

Zalmen Mlotek is an internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theater music as well as a leading figure in the Jewish theatre and concert worlds. For the past 20 years, he has been the Artistic Director and conductor at Folksbiene. He brought Yiddish-Klezmer music to Broadway and Off-Broadway stages with the Tony-nominated Those Were the Days and Drama Desk-nominated Amerike – The Golden Land. He serves as Music Director for most Folksbiene productions, including the recent New York Times Critics Pick The Sorceress and Drama Desk-nominated musical The Golden Bride. His music can be heard in over two-dozen recordings and films and he has taught and performed all over the world and worked with countless singers. His vision brought the critically acclaimed award-winning Fidler Afn Dakh (Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish), directed by Joel Grey, for which he served as music director, to New York City.

Eli Rosen, a native Yiddish-speaker raised in the Hasidic community of Brooklyn, serves as the managing director of New Yiddish Rep as well as a Yiddish cultural consultant for film and television. Past credits include producing, translating and appearing in Hanoch Levin Squared, as well as appearing in Waiting for Godot, Awake and Sing!, The New York Times’ Critic's Pick God of Vengeance, and Rhinoceros (in his own critically-acclaimed Yiddish translation), as well as his one-man-show The Drunk Cantor, based on the monologues of Maurice Schwartz. Film/TV credits include the Netflix series Unorthodox, Minyan, and The Binding of Itzik.

Born in Detroit and educated at Harvard, Mikhl Yashinsky is an actor-director, writer, and Yiddishist. He recently appeared with the Folksbiene in the Yiddish Fiddler on the Roof, directed by Joel Grey, and in The Sorceress (a New York Times Critic's Pick), for which performance he was hailed by the Times for giving a “keen, if malevolent, psychology” to the title role. His Detroit Opera House production of The Happy Prince was praised by Opera Magazine, which wrote that “in a clear staging by Yashinsky, the work had a joyful presentation.” Yashinsky taught Yiddish at the University of Michigan, and upcoming publications in the field include his translation of the memoirs of theatrical pioneer Ester-Rokhl Kaminska (Syracuse University Press), and In eynem (Yiddish Book Center), a groundbreaking new Yiddish textbook he co-authored. In 2019, he was named to the Forward 50, the historic newspaper's annual list of the year's most "influential, intriguing, and inspiring" American Jews.

About the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene

Now celebrating its 105th season, Tony Award-nominated and Drama Desk Award-winning National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (NYTF) is the longest consecutively producing theatre in the U.S. and the world's oldest continuously operating Yiddish theatre company. NYTF, which presented the award-winning Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, directed by Joel Grey, to sold out audiences before it moved to Off-Broadway uptown, is in residence at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Under the leadership of Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek and Executive Director Dominick Balletta, NYTF is dedicated to creating a living legacy through the arts, connecting generations and bridging communities. NYTF aims to bring history to life by reviving and restoring lost and forgotten work, commissioning new work, and adapting pre-existing work for the 21st Century. Serving a diverse audience comprised of performing arts patrons, cultural enthusiasts, Yiddish-language aficionados, and the general public, the company presents plays, musicals, concerts, lectures, interactive educational workshops, and community-building activities in English and Yiddish, with English and Russian supertitles accompanying performances. NYTF provides access to a century-old cultural legacy and inspires the imaginations of the next generation to contribute to this valuable body of work. Learn more at www.nytf.org.

About the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust

The Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust is New York’s contribution to the global responsibility to never forget. The Museum is committed to the crucial mission of educating diverse visitors about Jewish life before, during, and after the Holocaust. The third largest Holocaust museum in the world and the second largest in North America, the Museum of Jewish Heritage anchors the southernmost tip of Manhattan, completing the cultural and educational landscape it shares with the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. While the Museum's facility is temporarily closed, please visit mjhnyc.org and social media to learn about online programs and resources.

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