leyptsiker/mark/V2

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

Mark Leyptsiker

L. was born on 27 September 1897 in Warsaw, Poland, into a Chasidic family. He learned in cheders, yeshivas, etc. With difficulties, he was permitted to learn with a teacher [lmudi-huts] through his cousin, the actor Khayim Grinshpan. He became acquainted with Yiddish theatre and he received moreover a strong desire. He participated in a drama circle with Warsaw's "Hazamir", and then he wandered around for two years as a prompter with the actor Nathan Goldberg across Poland. Due to the World War he became hindered from performing in Yiddish, and he [thus] put together productions in dance and wedding halls under the mask of dance events and weddings.

At the end of 1914 he went away to Minsk and there with actors and "amateurs" put together a collective and acted on Shabbat afternoons, giving fifty percent off for the Russian Red Cross, acting several times, [when] it was generally forbidden to perform. In 1915 he traveled back to Warsaw and there prompted in the "Artistish vinkele" with "Hazamir".

Then he went on tour with Esther Rukhl Kaminska across Poland and the Ukraine. After the October Revolution he entered into the troupe of Rudolf Zaslavsky and Luksemberg. In 1920 he participated in Poltava's "Kunst-vinkl", which in 1921 attended the theatres in Kiev, where L. participated until 1928 as an director (evenings).

IN 1929 he went over to become a stage manager in the all-Ukrainian State Theatre for small forms "Gezkult", where he worked until 1930. Later he worked in Kiev's film industry, where he took a six-month course in the film laboratory.

In 1931 he worked for eight months as a stage inspector in the "First [Alfarbandishn] Polish Theatre" in Kiev, then he worked organizationally and administratively in the "Pedagogical Yiddish-Ukrainian State Theatre for Children" in Kiev, that had served the ratn (council) school of the national minority groups, Yiddish technicum, [profshul]. etc/

L. also had organized and staged with drama works in Yiddish worker clubs and Ukraine, and he participated in several Russian films.

L. is a member and active collector for the theatre department of the "Mendele Museum" in Odessa.

L. is a collaborator (Yiddish theatre department) for the "All-Ukrainian Soviet Encyclopedia" ("Ara") and the correspondent for the "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" for the Soviet Union.

Sh. E.

Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 2, page 1076.
You can also read Mark's amended Lexicon biography in its memorial volume no. 5.