Yiddishpiel (combination of "Yiddish" and "spiel" - play), is a Yiddish theatre in Tel Aviv, Israel. The theatre was established in 1987 at the initiative of former Tel Aviv mayor Shlomo Lahat and Chairman of Mercantile Discount Bank Moshe Noiderfer, as well as Shmuel Etsyon who partook in establishing the theater and served as its chairman and artistic director until November 2011, when he was replaced by Sasi Keshet.
Yiddishpiel's main goals are to commemorate and keep Yiddishkeit alive, as it is an inseparable part of Jewish history. The Yiddish is still alive and used quite broadly across the Jewish population today, thus the theater has a regular audience, most of which consists of relatively old people. The theater's offices are located on Carlebach Road 7, Tel Aviv.
In 1996, the Knesset approved the bill of establishing a national authority for Yiddish and Ladino (Judeo-Spanish) culture, whose role is to create a strong base for the two languages and their cultures in Israel.
Since its establishment, the theater has performed 42 productions which were presented in front of large audiences in Israel and in other countries. Throughout the years the theater partook in Israeli festivals as well as important foreign festivals, and has taken the stage in Wiesbaden, London, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, Vienna, Los Angeles, and Vilnius.
The theater has a wide selection of actors, including veterans such as Yaakov Bodo and Yaakov Alperon, and younger actors, who serve as the successors of Yiddish theater and culture, among them Dudu Fischer, Gadi Yagil, Anat Atzmon, Monica Vardimon, Jonathan Rozen, Yoni Eilat, and Amitai Kedar. Actor Carol Marcovicz, also acted at Yiddishpiel until his death in 2006.
Various repertoire plays are brought to the stage at the theater, which were written by various playwrights. Throughout every play, there are Hebrew and Russian subtitles as well as audio, for the benefit of those who do not speak Yiddish.
In each theatrical season, Yiddishpiel presents 4 new plays, with one each quarter. Some of the plays presented were translated into Yiddish and written by playwrights such as Shakespeare, Moliere, and others; other plays were adapted into Yiddish (by Shalom Aleichem and others), and others are local plays (by Yehoshua Sobol and others).
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