Folksbiene
| Address | 36 Battery Place, NY, NY 10280 New York City United States |
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| Type | Yiddish theatre |
| Opened | 1915 |
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The National Yiddish Theatre – Folksbiene is a professional theater company in New York City which produces both Yiddish plays and plays translated into Yiddish, in a theater equipped with simultaneous superscript translation into English. The company's leadership consists of artistic director Zalmen Mlotek (considered to be one of the world's top authorities on Yiddish culture), executive director Christopher Massimine, associate artistic director Motl Didner. The notably distinguished board is chaired by Jeffrey S. Wiesenfeld, principal at Bernstein Global Wealth Management, and vice chaired by Feliks Frenkel, principal at OTW Wealth Management.
Folksbiene (Yiddish for the People's Stage) was founded in 1915, by the Workmen's Circle, on New York City’s Lower East Side, and is thought to be "New York’s oldest theater company, English or Yiddish, commercial or not." The era when it was founded is considered to be the height of Yiddish theater; at the time there were 15 Yiddish theatre companies in the Yiddish Theater District in New York and many more worldwide. Due to the destruction of European Jewry by the German Nazis, the Folksbiene is one of only five professional Yiddish theatre companies still in operation; also in New York City is the New Yiddish Rep, and the others are in Bucharest, Warsaw and Tel Aviv.
The company's 2006 production of Di Yam Gazlonim, a Yiddish adaptation of The Pirates of Penzance, by Al Grand, was nominated for the 2007 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Musical Revival, and their 2012/13 Off Broadway production of The Golden Land was nominated for the 2013 Drama Desk Award for outstanding Musical Revival. In the summer of 2012, Folksbiene announced their plans to create a major international Festival of new works in celebrating their Centennial in 2015. A play contest accompanying the festival will be juried by producer Manny Azenberg; the Tony Award-winning composer and songwriter Jason Robert Brown ("Parade"), and the playwrights Joe DiPietro (Tony Award for "Memphis"); Obie Award-winning Israel Horovitz, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Jon Marans ("Old Wicked Songs").
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