The Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre, the longest-running Yiddish theatre company in the world, was formed in 1915 as a response to the light, escapist fare then on offer to immigrant audiences, and its commitment to high-quality Yiddish-language theater continued through the decades. It was sustained by two of the company's veteran members -- Morris Adler, who joined the company in 1934, and Zypora Spaisman, who joined twenty years later. During their tenure, the Folksbiene became a bastion for Yiddish theater and culture.

Morris Adler stopped performing in 1985 to become President Emeritus of the company. He passed away on December 27, 2001, at the age of 107. Zypora Spaisman eventually became the artistic director and remained the company's lead actress until 1999. She passed away on May 18, 2002. In this American Talker piece, Adler and Spaisman remember the roughly half century they each spent with the Folksbiene Yiddish Theater.

Producers: David Isay and Steve Zeitlin. / Funding provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the New York State Council on the Arts and the Corporation. "Folksbiene Yiddish Theater" is a co-production with City Lore. Photograph by Harvey Wang.

Please consider supporting the work of Sound Portraits and StoryCorps by making a donation.

This piece is available in the following audio formats [3:10 min]:
		28.8 kbps Real Audio
		56 kbps Real Audio
		ISDN Real Audio

		intro
		transcript

		The Folksbiene Yiddish Theatre's Web site
		Zypora Spaisman's obituary in the LA Times (registration required)
		Yiddish Radio Project, a series on the history of Yiddish radio

home  |  ON-AIR |  in-print |  about |  education |  support |  store

Sound Portraits Productions, 80 Hanson Place, 2nd Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11217
Telephone (646) 723-7020 | Fax (646) 723-7026

Copyright © 2008 Sound Portraits Productions. All rights reserved.