rosenberg/sandy

Lives in the Yiddish Theatre
Volume 8

MORE SHORT BIOGRAPHIES CREATED FOR A NEW ONLINE VOLUME
OF ZALMEN ZYLBERCWEIG'S " LEXICON OF THE yIDDISH THEATRE"

Sandy Rosenberg

Sandy Rosenberg is a first-generation April Fool's Day Baby Boomer born in Brooklyn, New York, where Yiddish was spoken between her live-in grandmother and parents as a way to keep the 'kinder' from knowing what was going on.

Sandy's first memory of performing is being seated on a piano at age four or five in the Catskills (probably at The Pines resort), providing an impromptu rendering of the song, "When the Red Red Robin Comes Bob Bob Bobbin' Along."

By sixth grade she had already been seen as Tevye in the Kingsway Jewish Center's production of Fiddler on the Roof. She was originally cast as Yente, but when Tevye had too much homework she was moved into the role. Word has it that her grandmother recognized her father's boots, but not the child wearing them....a steel wool beard glued to her face probably had something to do with that. Sandy was also the backstage fiddler, as she was the only one who had taken any lessons in the cast.

The following year, she again graced the stage of Kingsway Jewish Center in The Sound of Music, where, because it was an orthodox temple, no nuns ever appeared and Maria was now called Miriam. Sandy sang "Climb Every Mountain" as the Rabbi's wife. Anything is possible in the theatre, including rewriting history.

Eventually Sandy got her Bachelor of Arts degree from Sarah Lawrence College and made her way to Los Angeles, where she was active in the theatre scene, performing in the West Coast premieres of Kuni Leml and Phantom, playing Libe and Carlotta respectively. She also became a member of the Los Angeles cast of Les Miserables.

Sandy had her first taste of Yiddish theatre in Los Angeles, in a revue put together by Cantor Don Croll which was first performed at the Stephen S. Wise Temple and later throughout southern California. A tour of Jekyll and Hyde brought her back east and eventually to Broadway, where she was in the original cast of The Scarlet Pimpernel and later Mamma Mia!.

Sandy was honored to have performed with the National Yiddish Theatre-Folksbiene in the revival of their award-winning play, The Golden Land, as Gnendl/Gussie. Other than the revue in Los Angeles, Sandy had not performed in Yiddish, though it was a language she had heard her entire childhood. It seemed to flow naturally as a link to her past.

Sh. E. from Sandy Rosenberg.