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Joseph Schwartzberg
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Sh. was born in March 1889
in Lipno, Poland.
His grandfather was a local rabbi. His
father is a Hebrew writer who was the first to issue Peretz's "Hkhutz" (1894).
In 191 he came to America to
his father who had earlier settled in New York, where he
was a book dealer and issued the journal "Nr hmerbi".
Sh. learned in Baltimore, only for a huge tsugebundnket
to his father, he changed his learning and shortly
thereafter
returned to New York.
Disregarding his offspring,
his father, a freygezonener,
often attended the Yiddish theatre. During a visit on a
Shabbat afternoon to a production of the play "Rachel and
Leah", he placed Sh. with a landsfroy
(countrywoman), the actress Diana Feinman, and from then
on Sh. became a daytime attendee and patron of the
Yiddish theatre.
Meantime his father became a
collector for the "Jewish Herald," which stopped him
from becoming very occupied, and Sh. became a little hfkrdik,
and in 1905 he was introduced to an amateur group,
within which he found the later-famous actor Maurice
Schwartz and it is among them that there developed an
intimate friendship |
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Pulled from his
family, Sh. often came away hungry, until the actor
Largman took him out of the amateur group, and in
1907 Sh. became a professional prompter.
Sh. also wrote several
plays, such as "Idishe kinder, a lebensbild
("life image") in four acts, music by Brody," staged
on 25 December 1913 in Kessler's Second Avenue
Theatre by David Kessler, in which he acted in the
role of "Chaim Lipovski." The same play was also
named "Chaim, zise heym," which was at the same time
performed in the Odeon Theatre with Regina Prager,
music by Sholom Secunda. On 20 August 1915 in the
National Roof Garden there was staged Sh.'s play
"Dos meydl fun der ist seyd", music by Perlmutter
and Wohl, and on 10 February 1922 in the Lipzin
Theatre was staged with Jennie Valier Sh.'s four-act
play "Gekoyfte libe", which on 15 December 1922 was
staged by Julius Adler in the Liberty Theatre with
music by Peretz Sandler.
Since Maurice
Schwartz created the Yiddish Art Theatre, Sh. was
the prompter in this theatre and wholly often,
during a revival of an earlier-performed play, they
staged [plays] according to Schwartz's direction.
Sh. also traveled to
Argentina during the guest appearance of Maurice
Schwartz, and tried to settle down there. However,
he returned to New York, where he passed away on 2
July 1939.
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M. E.
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B. Gorin -- History of
Yiddish Theatre, Vol. II, pp. 276, 282.
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Maurice Schwartz --
Maurice Schwartz dertseylt, "Forward", L. A., 26
February, 3 March 1941.
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Sh. Niger -- "I. L.
Peretz", Buenos Aires, 1952, pp. 247-48.
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