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Adah Isaacs Menken (1835–1868) achieved celebrity first as an actress, later gaining some literary following for her poetry. Uncertainty surrounds Menken’s family history, as she claimed various…
Napoleon Sarony took this photograph of Alla Nazimova in the English-language performance of Ibsen’s Hedda Gabler. Alla Nazimova (1879–1945) was born Mariam Edez Adelaida Leventon in Yalta, Crimea, to…
The actor, comedian, and playwright Donat (David) Herrnfeld grew up in the small town of Raab (Győr) in Hungary; his family later moved to Vienna. Donat and his siblings performed and toured early on…
Very little is known about the actor Siegfried Berisch (1877–1933). He started out performing in the cabaret and German Jewish theater scenes in Berlin and Vienna. Berisch’s first major role was in Sc…
This scene is from the 1917 Vilna Troupe production of Fishl Bimko’s Ganovim (Robbers), featuring, from left to right, Morris Tarlov, Avrom Teytlboym, Herts Grosbard, Luba Kadison, and Noyekh Nakhbush…
The audience at the first formal performance by the Habima theater troupe in 1918. This set of short plays, Neshef bereshit (A Festival of Our Beginning), was performed in the Moscow Art Theatre under…
Ida Rubinstein, volunteering as a nurse in France during World War I, in a uniform specially designed for her by Leon Bakst. Dancer, actress, and patron of the arts Ida Rubinstein was born into a…
Purim plays (Purim shpiln, in Yiddish), sometimes also called Esther plays, have been known since the fifteenth century in both Ashkenazic and Sephardic communities. These folk plays were performed on…
Theda Bara (1885–1955) was born Theodosia Burr Goodman in Cincinnati. After completing public high school, Goodman moved to New York to become an actress. In advertisements for the Fox Film Company’s…
Postcards, such as this image of the actress as Cleopatra, advertised Sarah Bernhardt’s celebrated performances for global audiences. Born Henriette-Rosine Bernard to a Jewish courtesan of Dutch…
