He attended a ‘night school’ in the evenings and sold matches in the street during the day. After spending a year selling matches, he worked for a while as a shirt maker.

He writes in his memoirs:

"At the time, I did not have the slightest idea about theatre. The only bit of ‘theatre,’ which I would

remember from time to time, was the comic sketch performed by the badkhan Berele Shakhnes and his son-in-law at my older brother’s wedding. It often popped up in my mind, and I used to think that if people would only let me, I would have done it even better. It occurred to me at the time that when I got older and would be allowed to do this sort of thing at a wedding in America, I would show them what I was capable of, and in time I would become another Berele Shakhnes there. At the time, my performance was highly commended, so I was told. I, too, was pleased with how I played the little con artist. Even more pleased was I that by performing the part, I realized how beautiful Goldfaden's play was."

K. Went to work in a shop but performed in Gartenstein's drama group in the evenings. No longer interested in working in the shop, he started a ddance class, teaching young people to dance.

Having attended performances by the actors Moshe Silberman, Max Karp and (Moishe) Heine-Chaimowitz, he was so inspired that he got himself cast as an extra in [A. Goldfaden's] "Shulamis" (Shulamith).

He writes about it in his memoirs,

"When I was let out onstage with the 'people' on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem ..., I was terrified, but at the same time I felt my heart sing within me. I was happy -- so happy that I could not imagine greater happiness in my life. Everything I saw then on the stage enchanted me, and I gaped."

At the time, the actor Rudolph Marks arrived in Philadelphia and staged his translation of the play, "The Stowaway," in which K. appeared.

He writes in his memoirs,

"I did not ask Rudolf Marks for money  --  the thought never occurred to me ... I was thrilled that he immediately assigned to me the part of a boy selling papers in the street, and I got down to studying the part diligently."

However already after the first rehearsals, Marks took the part away from him because, just like [Sigmund] Mogulesko in 'Di koketn-dame (The Coquette),' he decided to play three parts in the play, one of them that of the boy. Out of revenge, K. and a friend, having watched the play several times and written it down from memory, put together a 'company' and staged it in a cobbled-together fashion, in wich K. also played the three parts. When Boris Thomashefsky came to Philadephia and staged 'Honor Thy Father,' K. got the part of a sexton. Afterwards, he kept the [fake] beard and, having gone back to working in a shop, would sing Yiddish theatre songs during work, putting on the beard and making the shop staff laugh.

K. performed with Thomashefsky for several years. In the meantime, K.'s sister won $10,000 in the lottery. His mother, wishing to knock the theatre 'madness' out of his head, bought him a farm. K., however, felt unhappy there, sold it to the former actotr Yisroel Weinblat, and returned to the stage after his mother's death. He joined a theatrical company in Brownsville, where he appeared in "Aliles-dam [The Blood Libel]," or  "Menakhem ben Yisroel [Menachem Son of Israel]," and "Di khalitse [The Partition]," or "Velvele est kompot [Velvele Eats Compote]." For a few weeks it went well, and K. would get his promised ten dollars a week, but later things started to go from bad to worse, until there was no money to pay the wages.

K. continues,

"I never considered giving up the stage -- not even during the worst times ... . And it was difficult for me to understand those Yiddish actors who for whatever reason left the stage and took up something else, as was the case with Yisroel Weinblat, Rudolf Marks and others. ... I simply could not get my head around an actor leaving the stage just because he was going through difficult times ..."

Later, K. was booked by Abba Schoengold to perform in Boston.

K. writes in his memoirs,

"I did not discuss the wages with him at all. There was nothing to discuss because actors played for 'stamps.' It was just a question of which 'stamp' I would get, but I did not dare open my mouth to ask anything because my situation was such that whatever I was offered was dear and precious to me, and I took it for a good thing."

Sam Kasten in "Der griner milioner" (The Green Millionaire) by A. Shomer

There he was booked by Ivan Abramson in the Columbia Theatre, where he played for two seasons. From there he was booked by the People's Music Hall in New York, and later by the People's Theatre.

K. beccame a member of the Hebrew Actors' Union, and from that time he earned his acclaim in New York. He played a season with [Sara] Adler, [David] Kessler, and [Sigmund] Mogulesko, and thirteen seasons in the Windsor, Grand, Thalia and Kalich theatres. Playing with Kessler (1910) in the Lyric Theatre, K. recalls how Kessler, during rehearsal of a play by [Maxim] Gorky, tried to explain to the actors what each of them had to do for their parts in the following way: "What is a play?  ... A play is words. And what are words in a play before it is performed? The words are seeds that the actors have to gather from the ground, just as birds and pigeons pick seeds, scattered seeds. They are lying around on the ground, and the birds need to pick them up with their beaks and taste them."

K. then played eleven seasons under Thomashefsky in the National; in Philadelphia under Anshel Schorr; in the Second Avenue Theatre under Edelstein; a season in the People's Theatre (managed by Shulman and Ravinger); a season with Max Gabel, again in Philadelphia; in the Public Theatre (under Shulman and Goldberg); and from 1928, in the Second Avenue Theatre with Molly Picon.

This is how Zalmen Zylbercweig describes him at the time,

"With his flexibility, he should have become an acrobat. 'Actor' was written on his face. He was always clean-shaven, elegantly dressed with a smile on his face. He remembered Yiddish theatre in America almost from its beginnings. He did not find the literary repertoire inspiring. He thought of the theatre as a place of entertainment. He had a very fine, clear diction, sang songs beautifully, especially couplets, was an excellent dancer, and in his old age pulled a 'trick' of dying his hair, and then presenting himself as the biggest winner. He derived great pleasure out of it. He was very much loved by theatre-goers who remembered him playing in all kinds of companies for so many years."

Gertie Bulman, Sam Kasten and Michael Rosenberg
in "Di kale loyft [Here Runs the Bride]" by Osip Dymow.

This what N.B. Linder writes about him for his sixtieth birthday,

" ... Of the tens of thousands of people who saw Kasten onstage during the last couple of seasons, ... many have believed, and still believe today, that the snow-white, silvery head of hair on the young, flexible body of the dancing and leaping Sam Kasten is just theatrical makeup, a wig he is wearing for the part. It is hard to believe that the stretchy young man with the clear, bright face and mischievous, twinkling eyes really is sixty years old.

... Thank God, during his career on the stage, Same Kasten has heard enough praise and compliments, not only from the critics, but also from his own colleagues. Adler, Kessler, Mogulesko, and Thomashefsky, Madame Kalich, and now also Molly Picon, have all together and each one individually appreciated Kasten's talent and often competed to snap him up from one another.

Kasten has often had an opportunity to play purely dramatic roles, but his main skill and primary talent have always been in comedy, especially in light, playful, slapstick comedy. The incomparable Mogulesko, in his heyday, had the biggest influence on him, and Kasten followed in his footsteps.

His first and greatest virtue is always radiating genuine affability and love for people. I have known Kasten for a good few years, and I have never heard from him a single derogatory word about another actor. At the same time, he is never sparing of praise for other actors. This does not mean at all that he loves everyone equally. There is perhaps no shortage of people in the profession that he is not fond of, but you won't learn this from him. ... He hates grief, sadness and depression, and he fights against them with the sharpest weapon -- a joke, a laugh and mischief, so people feel at ease around him. he is always and everywhere a welcome guest, a sought-after companion -- in short, he is loved, truly loved."

This is what the composer Joseph Rumshinsky writes abut him,

"Sam Kasten endured the beginnings, the cradle of American Yiddish theatre. By the word 'endured' I simply mean hunger, privation, going on foot, days without enough food and nights without enough sleep. When Sam Kasten made his career on the stage, he was not very good either at following the recommendations that doctors and private persons are preaching so much. Kasten ate what his heart desired, drank what his eyes saw, and went through an actor's usual night life, and yet it was amazing to see quite early in the morning at a rehearsal, when all the actors were barely awake, not rested and close to exhausted, Kasten standing there with a white head of hair, in a pressed suit, his role in his hand, dancing, jumping up and almost teasing his colleagues.

Kasten was the first one to bring Broadway mannerisms to the Yiddish stage. Kasten's couplets were something like 'Fifty-Fifty,' ''The Line is Busy,'  and 'A Mistake.' He felt it was necessary to draw the English-speaking Jewish public to Yiddish theatre. He had felt it already twenty-five years earlier [this article was published in 1936]. I won't say that Kasten was someone who copycatted American actors on the Yiddish stage, because his best parts were all real Jewish characters -- Chasidic, ardent Jewish roles -- but the Jewish East Side, which had once pined for a Broadway comic because he was a stranger on the East Side, then saw in Kasten a Broadway-like comic.

... Sam Kasten is a follower of Sigmund Mogulesko. he always has him before his eyes with his 'little dance' and his finger gestures, but in the Sam Kasten way, and it was Mogulesko himself who drew my attention to it. 'Sam Kasten imitates me, and quite well too, but in the middle of his acting, as he imitates me, I suddenly turn into a Broadway actor.'

... His intention has been to attract American youth to Yiddish theatre, and he used to succeed in this. My little boy ... in his early years used to talk, imitate, sing, walk, dance, and even eat and go to bed with Sam Kasten's name on his lips. But it was in Chasidic roles, which involved dancing in fours and singing a short duet in Yiddish, an authentic Yiddish 'kugel duet' -- and certainly when Kasten would meet onstage wit the old Lazer Zuckerman, who can be dubbed 'the father of Yiddish comics' -- that the true Kasten would be revealed, as he would say, 'If I want to, I can stop being "à la Broadway" and be a real Goldfaden actor.'

... Although Sam Kasten would run to Broadway to see every American play and listen to and learn by heart every joke of American comedians, he had been brought up on Goldfaden's prose and music, and these two, this comination of the old Goldfaden and the modern Broadway theatre, formed the Sam Kasten combination, and one could say, 'The Sam Kasten era.'"

Yudel Dubinsky relates a curious anecdote about K.,

"Sam Kasten, the famous late comic actor, [once] told me an amusing story that had happened to him and the German-Jewish actor Rudolph Schildkraut, may he rest in peace, onstage. There was a Yiddish theatre in Brooklyn at the time, headed by Rudolph Schildkraut and Sarah Adler.

The great artiste Rudolph Schildkraut was a man of volatile temper, and if, G-d forbid, a co-actor made a mistake or did not pay proper attention, all hell would break loose. In such moments, he was unable to keep his temper in check. He would explode and completely lose it.

... Sam Kasten had been booked by that theatre. According to the plot of the play that was running at that time, Kasten played the part of Rudolph Schildkraut's servant. Their respective parts were linked to each other. They were in constant contact with each other throughout the entire performance. As bad luck would have it, in a scene in which Sam Kasten got carried away talking to someone backstage, he did not enter the stage on cue. Minutes went by without Kasten showing up (bear in mind that every minute on the stage is an eternity). The stage manager noticed it, found Kasten and sent him up onto the stage. Kasten, half-dead with fright, ran up onto the stage, out of breath. No sooner had Schildkraut saw him than he jumped up to him and landed a resounding slap on his face, which echoed in the house. However, seeing the wild rage on Kasten's face and his fiery eyes gtiving off sparks, Rudolph Schildkraut quickly checked himself, threw himself into Kasten's arms, and burst into sobs (he disarmed Kasten artistically, so to speak). A storm of applause rang through the house. The audience was impressed by their acting in the scene, which they thought was part of the plot.

The act ended. Backstage, the other actors interfered and made peace between the two. Schildkraut, with tears in his eyes, begged Kasten to forgive him for his impulsive act, and placing his hand on Kasten's arm, said, "Sam, first of all, let's kiss eah other, and if you want to know, we're both to blame, but ... I want you to know that the slap made an enormous impression. From now on, let's play the scene as we did tonight, wiht the slap.'

Sam Kasten agreed. From that night onwards, the scene was played according to the 'original slap' and had a great success."

This is what Chaver-Paver writes about him,

'... I caught him when he was already in his seventies. I had heard that the audience loved him very much for his singing fun couplets and dancing rakish dances. He was an acrobat of a dancer. The only time I saw him onstage was when he was seventy plus, made up as a young man of about twenty-five, tap dancing as it is called, meaning making rhythmic sounds with the soles of the shoes. The audience knew that he was in his seventies and applauded him even more, while Sam Kasten knew that the audience knew about his advanced age and wanted to show them that age meant nothing to him, that he was the same Sam Kasten."

On summer evenings, I often saw him in Cafe Royal. A cane in hand, a straw hat tilted rakishly on the side of his head of silky bluish-white hair. His face, ruddy from a good massage, his wrinkles, pressed out, smoothed out, powdered up. Wearing white flannel trousers, like bells over his black-lacquered shoes; a blue and blown-checkered jacket, buttoned on one button, and a blue silk shirt, with a black-and-white polka-dot tie. He was already in his eighties then and waved his cane energetically from side to side. Every time he came into Cafe Royal, his colleagues told him straightaway how he looked, and Sam Kasten beamed, a mischievous twinkle in his bluish eyes. He appeared onstage very seldom at the time, but on summer evenings he came to Cafe Royal almost daily so that his colleagues would tell him how youthful he looked, and he would revel in it."

In 1932-1933, K. went on tour in Detroit with Siegel's comedy, "Der freilikher zayde (The Merry Grandpa]" (director Littman).

K. was published in the Forverts anonymously, through M. Osherowitch, his memoirs entitled, "Sam Kasten on 50 Years of Yiddish Theatre" (19 September 1946 -- 20 February 1947).

K. was related to Bessie Thomashefsky.

K.'s wife Suzi, played on the Yiddish stage for a period of time. His two sons, Freddie (d. 1936) and Louis, were cashiers in theatres. One of his daughters, Lily, also played on the Yiddish stage (d. 27 September 1946).

K. died on 4 March 1951 in New York. [He probably passed away in March of 1953].

Sh.E. by Zalmen Zylbercweig.

B. Gorin -- idish teater, vol. 2, 179.

[-] "Far tsores muz kestin lakhn.", Forverts, New York, 4 May 1913.

Bessie Thomashefsky -- "Mayn lebens-geshikhte", New York, 1917, pp. 110, 110-111, 113, 219.

B. Botwinick -- "Sem kestin vert alt fuftsik yor," Forverts, New Yori, 18 April 1920.

Sam Kasten -- "Ikh un dos publikum," Der tog, 13 April 1928.

N.B. Linder -- "Fier-un-fertsig yor tantst er shoyn oyf der bine, zingt un shpilt yidish teater," ibid, 11 April 1930.

Zalmen Zylbercweig -- "Albom fun idishn teater," New York, 1934, p. 98.

Joseph Rumshinsky -- "Sam kestin -- der idisher brodvey aktor oyf sekond evenyu," Forverts, New York, 17 April 1936.

J. Kirschenbaum -- "Di 'tsvey kuni lemel' fun'm idishn teater: Sem kestin un yakev frank," Morgen zhurnal, New York, 9 February 1940.

J. Kirschenbaum -- "Unzere zekhtsig, zibetsig un 75-yorige teater-yubilaren, vos fardinen koved," Di idishe tsaytung, Buenos Aires, 18 August 1944.

Yudl Dubinsky -- 'Sam kestin un rudolf shildkroyt," Tog-morgen zhurnal, New York, 19 April 1953.

Sam Kasten -- "Sem kestin bashraybt 50 yor idish teater," Forverts, New York, 19 September 1946 -- 20 February 1947.

Chaver-Paver -- "Idishe aktorn," Morgen frayhayt, New York, 16 August 1963.