Joel Grey and More to Be Featured on FOLKSBIENE LIVE! An Online Celebration of Yiddish Culture

This week, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene (Folksbiene)-led by Zalmen Mlotek, Artistic Director, and Dominick Balletta, Executive Director-brings the stage to global audiences with Folksbiene LIVE!, featuring celebrated Yiddish star Avi Hoffman, Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish's Joel Grey, Steven Skybell, Adam B. Shapiro and Zisl Slepovitch (and other members of the cast!), and The Golden Bride's Joe Mace.

Folksbiene LIVE! is an online celebration of Yiddish culture, featuring livestreamed theater, American Jewish performers, concerts, lectures, talks, and other events. The programming - which can be viewed at nytf.org - launched on March 17 with Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek's Living Room Concert.

The Tony Award-nominated and Drama Desk Award-winning Folksbiene-in residence at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust in Battery Park City-is the longest consecutively producing theatre in the U.S. and the world's oldest continuously operating Yiddish theatre company, and from March 30 to April 3 - will host the following streaming presentations:

Avi Hoffman presents A Life in Yiddish Theatre

Monday, March 30 (7:00 PM)

Avi started his professional as a child actor in Folksbiene's 1968 production of a??Bronx Expressa??. He a??recently was awarded Congressional recognition and inducted into the Bronx Jewish Hall of Fame for his lifetime work advancing Jewish culture, Yiddishkayt, and Holocaust awareness. He has been nominated for a Drama Desk Award for his Yiddish Willy Loman in a??Death of a Salesmana??, and is best known for his award-winning trilogy: a??Too Jewish?, Too Jewish, Too! a??and Still Jewish After All These Yearsa??. He could be seen on television as Sid Raskin in Starz' a??Magic City, a??Netflix' Bloodline,a?? a??A&E's a??The Glades, a??and NBC's a??Law and Ordera??. Avi has performed extensively worldwide and received multiple awards and nominations.

Zisl Slepovitch Presents Klezmer Clarinet & Beyond

Tuesday, March 31 (5 PM)

D. Zisl Slepovitch is a musicologist (Ph.D.), composer, reed and keyboard player, educator, and a founding member at Litvakus and Zisl Slepovitch Trio. His collaborations include National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, TFANA, Teatrul evreiesc de stat, New Yiddish Rep; and, Off-Broadway: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish. He is Musician-in-Residence at Fortunoff Video Archive at Yale University, and a guest artist and lecturer at universities and festivals worldwide.

Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish's Adam B. Shapiro

with "Adam B. Shapiro - Live from Shapiro Hall"

Wednesday, April 1 (7:00 PM)

Please Join Adam live from his living room (Shapiro Hall) for a program of songs and stories that celebrate life and love in English and Yiddish and spend April Fools with Gimpl the Fool. Adam had never spoken Yiddish in his life when he was cast as the title character in Folksbiene's 2008 production of Gimpl Tam (Gimpl the Fool). That production began a relationship between Adam and Folksbiene that has grown and flourished over the following decade+, with Adam appearing in their productions of The Megille of Itsik Manger (2014), The Golden Bride (2015, 2016), and most recently as Der Rov and the Tevye/Leyzer Volf cover in the hugely successful Fiddler on the Roof (2018-2020), as well as numerous concerts and readings. Adam can be seen on screen in Adam Sandler's The Cobbler, in the Netflix series Friends From College, and in The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel as the Cantor.

Thursday, April 2 (5 PM)

Zalmen Mlotek in conversation with Joel Grey, Steven Skybell, and the cast of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish

Folksbiene Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek leads a talkback with celebrated actor Joel Grey, who directed the Off-Broadway's Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, and Steven Skybell, who starred as Tevye in the acclaimed, award-winning production (which originated by Folksbiene at the Museum of Jewish Heritage before moving uptown). The conversation also will include other members of the cast (cast members are subject to change).

Friday, April 3 (4 PM)

An Afternoon Salon with Joe Mace:

A Collection of Songs in Yiddish, English and a Few Languages in Between

(with Daniel Rigamer and Zalmen Mlotek)

A New York City-based performer and educator, Joseph performs a diverse repertoire, spanning from oratorio and opera to contemporary song, jazz and musical theatre. Off-Broadway credits include the Drama Desk Award-nominated The Golden Bride, and New York and International workshops of The Sorceress (National Yiddish Theatre). Recent season highlights include Sunday in the Park with George (Signature Theatre, Helen Hayes nom.), LES MISERABLES (Summer Lyric Theatre), Candide (Indiana University), and Bound for the Promised Land (SF Jazz Festival). As a concert artist, Joseph's solo engagements include appearances with the regional symphonies across the United States. Also a seasoned opera chorus artist, Joseph has sung with the Metropolitan, New Orleans and San Francisco Operas.

Each episode is broadcast live on NYTF's Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/folksbiene/ as well as NYTF"s nytf.org website where previous presentations can also be seen.

Later this spring, NYTF will present The Tenth Man, the Tony-nominated play by Paddy Chayefsky (the three-time Academy Award-winning author of Network, Marty, and The Hospital) in a newly commissioned Yiddish translation, directed by Tony Award-nominated director Eleanor Reissa.

NYTF continues to monitor the virus' impact on New York, but currently, The Tenth Man is set to be performed in previews from May 17 to 21 (matinee) and performances from May 21 (evening) to June 11, Off Broadway at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, Edmond J. Safra Plaza, 36 Battery Place, NYC.

The Tenth Man, which debuted on Broadway in 1959, is an American retelling of the dybbuk story as a touching human comedy in which we must question who is really possessed: the young passionate religious granddaughter of one of the elderly congregants, or the successful yet cynical Manhattan lawyer? This play captures the struggle between Jewish generations, youth and old age, cynics and believers, and scientists and mystics-with a moving and surprising outcome.

Tickets start at $39 for previews and $49 for regular season-and are available at www.NYTF.org. The Tenth Man will be performed in Yiddish, with English and Russian supertitles. Visit NYTF.org or call 866-811-4111. For group sales and membership, call 212-213-2120 Ext. 204.

The Tenth Man is part of NYTF's season of "Spiritual Resistance," which features artistic and theatrical works that explore themes of struggle against oppression. The programming provides artistic expression concurrent with the exhibition Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away. being presented at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust.