Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
SHORT BIOGRAPHIES OF THOSE INVOLVED IN THE Yiddish THEATRE
aS DESCRIBED IN zALMEN zYLBERCWEIG'S "lEKSIKON FUN YIDISHN TEATER"

1931-1969
 

Boruch Lumet

Born 22 May 1898 in Warsaw, Poland. His father was a cantor in a small shul where Lumet sang in the choir. After his father’s death he sang in a children’s couplet in various Polish vaudeville houses. Later  he appeared in dramatic sketches directed by David Herman who took an interest in Lumet, and he taught him in the dramatic arts. At the same time, Lumet learned music theory with the conductor Davidovich. Then he played in David Herman’s dramatic studio. On the way to America, where he arrived in 1920, he performed in Yiddish theatres in Berlin, Hamburg and London.

In America, Lumet played in Philadelphia for a short time, then at the  New York Yiddish Art Theatre for a while, and in 1928-29 he was the head of a drama studio in Philadelphia. 

Since then, Lumet organized dramatic evenings where he performed his own dramatizations accompanied by his own music ( “The Crazy Batlan”, “Song of Songs”, first act of I. L. Peretz’s “The Golden  Chain” and “The Unusual Wedding Dress[?]", “The Red Thread", a social poem based on Morris Winchevsky’s writings,  I. Bovshover, Morris Rosenfeld, David Edelstat, Abraham Reyzen,  A. Black’s “Twelve”, Mendele Mokher Seforim’s “Fishke the Lame” and Sholem Aleichem’s “Menachem Mendel”).

In 1930-31 L. acted in Sholem Asch’s “Uncle Moses” (“The Rabbi”) at the Yiddish Art Theatre.

 

On February 6,1930 “The Street Comedian” – an operetta by Lumet and P. Stein, music by Mushinski -- performed by Pesach Burstein at the Arch Street Theatre.

During the summer season of 1930-32, Lumet managed the National Workers Association children camps. He had the children perform a few children’s plays that he had written or dramatized. Some of these plays were published in 1932 in a book called “Theatre for Children" by Boruch Lumet, illustrated by S. Raskin, Yossel Kotler, L. Sherker, Note Kozlovsk” (“The Seven Good Years” a play in five acts, dramatized loosely based on I. L. Peretz, “What the [?])-based on Peretz’s  three-act play “The Magid and the Calf”{?] , based on a story from Chelm, “Two Angels” a fantasy two-part play, based on a story by[?] , “Grey and Green”  a three scenes loosely based on a story by Jacob Pat (197 pages in album format).


Sh. E

  • A. E. Mandelboym -- Boruch Lumet in Peretz chapters [???],”Die yugend” [Youth], N.Y., March 1927.

  • L. [??] – A truly artistic evening by young artists, “Tog” [Day], N.Y. 28 February, 1931.

  • B. I. Goldstein -- After three weeks watching, listening and keeping quiet -- “Fraye arbayter shtime” , N.Y., 20 March 1931.

  • N. B. Lider -- Three interesting evenings in one weekend, “Tog”, N.Y., 13 February 1932.

  • |Itzhak Libman -- The “Yihess” [ancestry] of small art [?], “Unzer Folk” [Our people], N.Y. 26 February 1932.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 1019.
 

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