National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (Folksbiene)—led by Zalmen Mlotek, Artistic Director, and Dominick Balletta, Executive Director—continues its virtual entertainment series Folksbiene! LIVE with Soul to Soul star Tony Perry’s The Way I Feel on Wednesday, August 19, 15-Minute Yiddish lessons led by Motl Didner (on Tuesdays), and, Zalmen Mlotek’s weekly Living Room Concerts (on Thursdays).
All Folksbiene! LIVE programs are presented at 1:00 PM. Stay in the loop and get reminders about new episodes by subscribing to Folksbiene’s newsletter, and catch up on past episodes on demand, at nytf.org/live.
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.
Tony Perry’s “The Way I Feel”
Wednesday, August 19 at 1:00 PM
Tony Perry, star of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s Soul to Soul, presents a multi-cultural quest for hope and peace. Perry, an actor and singer-songwriter, has traveled the world with the concert production Soul to Soul, which features Yiddish and African American songs.
15-Minute Yiddish (more or less)
Tuesday, August 18 and 25 at 1:00 PM
A weekly lunch and learn with National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene Associate Artistic Director Motl Didner, where adults can learn the basics of Yiddish conversation—no Yiddish experience necessary—in 15 minutes (more or less)!
Zalmen Mlotek’s Living Room Concerts
Thursdays at 1:00 PM
National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek’s weekly Living Room Concerts presents Special Requests and Dedications (Part 2) on August 20, and Songs My Parents Loved. Favorites of Yosi and Chana Mlotek on August 27.
Bios of participants (in alphabetical order):
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 Picklestarring 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.
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.
Tony Perry is an actor and singer-songwriter who appeared on the Folksbiene stage in 74 Georgia Ave., one of three one-act plays by Murray Schisgal that comprised Spiel! Spiel! Spiel! Since then he also has traveled the world with the National Yiddish Theatre’s concert production “Soul to Soul” which features Yiddish and African American songs. In New York he also has appeared in Bastard Jones, Raisin, Allegro, Shelter in Our Car, Martin: A New Beginning, The Groove Factory and Repo: The Genetic Opera. Regionally, he has appeared in Memphis, Ain’t Nothing But the Blues, Parade, Cross That River, Ain’t Misbehavin, Five Guys Named Moe, Dreamgirls, Big River, Me and My Girl, Smokey Joes Café, The Rocky Horror Show, and A Grand Night For Singing. He has appeared in the films Mickey and Finding Oz: A Journey Home. He has three folk-rock CDs available on iTunes.
About the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene
Now entering its 106th 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.
The Museum of Jewish Heritage maintains a collection of more than 40,000 artifacts, photographs, documentary films, and survivor testimonies and contains classrooms, a 375-seat theater (Edmond J. Safra Hall), special exhibition galleries, a resource center for educators, and a memorial art installation, Garden of Stones, designed by internationally acclaimed sculptor Andy Goldsworthy. The Museum is the home of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene.
Currently on view is the acclaimed exhibition Auschwitz. Not long ago. Not far away. This is the most comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the history of Auschwitz and its role in the Holocaust ever presented in North America, bringing together more than 700 original objects and 400 photographs from over 20 institutions and museums around the world.
Also on view are Ordinary Treasures: Highlights from the Museum of Jewish Heritage Collection and Rendering Witness: Holocaust-Era Art as Testimony.
The Museum receives general operating support from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.
While the Museum’s building is currently closed in accordance with COVID-19 safety measures, an array of programs and educational resources is being presented online. The Museum announced plans to reopen the week after Labor Day.
For more information, visit mjhnyc.org.
