Photos: Get a First Look at National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene's AMID FALLING WALLS

Production photos are now available for the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene production of Amid Falling Walls (Tsvishn Falndike Vent). This world premiere musical, which celebrates the resilience and hope of those who endured during the Holocaust—as portrayed through the actual Yiddish songs miraculously created, sung, and saved during that time—will play a limited four-week-only engagement through December 10, 2023 at Edmond J. Safra Hall at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A Living Memorial to the Holocaust (36 Battery Place). Opening night is November 20, 2023. Tickets for the musical, performed in Yiddish with English and Russian subtitles, are on sale now.

Get a first look at photos below!

The cast features Dani Apple (NYTF: The Sorceress), Jacob Ben-Shmuel  (National Tour: The Book of Mormon), Yael Eden Chanukov (NYTF: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish; TV: “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”), Abby Goldfarb  (NYTF: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, Harmony), Eli Mayer (Regional: Ride the Cyclone, Footloose), Daniella Rabbani (NYTF: Gimpel Tam, Hershele Ostropolyer, The Golden Land), John Reed (Regional: Something Rotten!,  Guys and Dolls), Mikhl Yashinsky (NYTF: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish), and Rachel Zatcoff (Broadway: The Phantom of the Opera; NYTF: Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish), with Steven Skybell (Tevye in NYTF’s Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish).

Amid Falling Walls (Tsvishn Falndike Vent), from the company that brought you Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish and Harmony, is curated and arranged by NYTF’s Artistic Director Zalmen Mlotek, and curated and written by Avram Mlotek, who is a rabbi, cantor, licensed social worker, author of two books, and grandchild of noted Yiddish culturists, with direction by Motl Didner 
(NYTF: The Golden Bride, The Megile of Itzik Manger).

The production features material written and performed in ghettos, cabarets, partisan encampments in the forests, concentration camps and clandestine theaters, and includes firsthand testimony of people living through the Holocaust via their own poetry and music. Although many of the young men and women in their 20s and 30s who created the remarkable work featured in the production were murdered during World War II, their songs are brought to life in a show that is the first of its kind: the authentic story of resistance and hope through the words and music of those who were there.

Much of the show’s musical material exists today because of the efforts of Shmerke Kaczerginski, a poet, partisan and member of the famed YIVO Paper Brigade, who dedicated the years of his life, following the war, to collecting the songs of those who lived through the years of horror.

The phrase “Tsvishn Falndike Vent” is a fragment of the “Partisan Hymn,” a song written in 1943 in the Vilna Ghetto, and because of its powerful lyrics quickly spread through the forests and ghettos and camps as a motto. 

Many of the songs in Amid Falling Walls (Tsvishn Falndike Vent) were curated by Yosl Mlotek, who served as education director at the Jewish cultural organization, The Workers Circle, and Chana Mlotek, an ethnomusicologist and folklorist who served as the longstanding music archivist for The YIVO Institute for Jewish Research. The couple, once called the “Sherlock Holmeses of Yiddish folk songs,” endeavored throughout their lives to collect and transliterate Yiddish songs that originated throughout history, including during the Holocaust. Their son Zalmen continued that tradition, and he has passed that on to their grandson, Avram, as well.

The production features several of those songs curated in the recently unveiled Yosl and Chana Mlotek Yiddish Song Collection at The Workers Circle. This comprehensive, searchable online database of Yiddish music contains lyrics, translations, sheet music, and audio and video performances to more than 400 Yiddish songs — including content curated from YouTube, Spotify, and TikTok videos showcasing newer generations of artists around the globe performing songs from the Collection and highlighting the contemporary celebration of Yiddish arts.

The creative team for Amid Falling Walls (Tsvishn Falndike Vent) features scenic design by Jessica Alexandra Cancino, costume design by Izzy Fields, lighting design by Yael Lubetzky, sound design by Dan Moses Schreier, and projection design by Brad Peterson. Associate scenic design is by Madeline Goddard, associate costume design is by Ridley Parson, associate lighting design is by Yang Yu,  associate sound design is by Sam Lerner, and associate projection design is by Andrew Garvis.

Choreography is by Tamar Rogoff. Orchestrations are by Frank London and Michael Winograd. Production Stage Manager is Jason Brouillard. Assistant Stage Manager is Robert Cott. Production Management is by TINC Productions (Duncan Northern, Joshua Bernard, Madilyn Keller). Casting is by Jamibeth Margolis, CSA. Casting Assistant is Meredith Hoddeson.