Selected Shorts: Rebel Yiddish Writers

Funny, surprising, and poignant stories by controversial Yiddish writers—Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer, Sholem Asch, and Moishe Nadir—who sometimes scandalized their mainstream critics. Presented in cooperation with The National Yiddish Book Center.

Performance playlist:

My First Love by Moishe Nadir
Performed by John Shea

A Quiet Garden Spot by Sholem Asch

Gimpel the Fool by Isaac Bashevis Singer
Performed by Isaiah Sheffer

Sholem Asch (1880–1957) was a Yiddish novelist, dramatist, and essayist born in Poland. For the duration of World War I he lived in the U.S., where he published most of his literary works. Some of his writings include his trilogy, Three Cities, which describes early 20th Century Jewish life in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Warsaw; Kiddush ha-Shem, one of the earliest historical novels in Yiddish literature; and The Song of the Valley, which is about the Jewish-Zionist pioneers in Palestine. In 1932, he was awarded the Polish Republic's Polonia Restituta decoration and was elected honorary president of the Yiddish PEN Club.

Laura Esterman appeared this season in Thomas Bradshaw's Dawn at the Flea Theater, and last season in Mike Leigh's 2,000 Years with The New Group. Her other Off Broadway work includes Curtains, Cranes, The American Clock, True Love, Edith Stein, The Wax, and Marvin’s Room, for which she received the Drama Desk, Outer Critics Circle, and Obie Awards. Her Broadway credits include I.B. Singer's Teibele and Her Demon, The Suicide, and Kafka's Metamorphosis with Mikhail Baryshnikov. Regional roles include Amanda in The Glass Menagerie, Queen Margaret in Richard III, and Mrs. Alving in Ghosts. Recent television appearances include Law and Order and Life on Mars.

Moishe Nadir (1885–1943) came to the U.S. at the age of 14 from Galicia. He was a versatile writer with a sharp eye for surrealist comedy. He was first published when he was 17, and was considered a master of Yiddish vernacular because his stories are full of puns, neologisms, jokes, and word plays.

John Shea’s theatre work includes Yentl, for which he received a Theatre World Award; End of the World; How I Learned to Drive; The Director; and The Normal Heart in London’s West End. His 45 films include Windy City, Stealing Home, Lune de Miel (France), Unsettled Land (Israel), Hussy (England), and the Academy Award-winning Missing. His television credits include Lois and Clark (as Lex Luthor); Mutant X; Kennedy, which earned him a BAFTA Award; Baby M, for which he received an Emmy Award; Small Sacrifices; and The Dining Room for Great Performances. He also co-wrote and directed the film Southie. A long-time Selected Shorts performer, he was nominated for an Audie Award for his work in audio books. He recently shot Achchamundu (for India) and An Invisible Sign of My Own, with Jessica Alba and Sonia Braga. He currently appears in Gossip Girl and is casting Grey Lady, a film he wrote and will direct in 2009.

Isaiah Sheffer is a founder and the artistic director of Symphony Space, as well as host and director of Selected Shorts live at Symphony Space, on tour, and on public radio nationwide. He is also a co-creator of The Thalia Follies political cabaret.

Isaac Bashevis Singer (1904-1991) won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1978. In 1935, the year his first novel was published, he left his family in Russia and moved to New York with the support of his older brother. Most of his novels were serialized in the Jewish Daily Forward, but mainstream recognition came when Saul Bellow translated "Gimpel the Fool" in 1953. His many books include The Slave, A Friend of Kakfa, Enemies: A Love Story, and Old Love. In honor of the Isaac Bashevis Singer Centennial in 2004, the Library of America published Isaac Bashevis Singer: Selected Stories, Isaac Bashevis Singer: An Album, and Isaac Bashevis Singer: The Boxed Set.