The Yinglish Mikado, from Tamiment to Hollywood

Led by special guest Eve Sicular

In the fraught Summer of 1939 at cosmopolitan, deeply Jewish yet pointedly un-Catskills Tamiment resort, a Yinglish parody of a Gilbert & Sullivan classic – starring newcomers Danny Kaye and Jerome Robbins – provided a complex comedic release for that season’s tremendous anxiety over the fate of Eastern European Jews. Together we will look at the production’s history, milieu, purpose, linguistic tricks and aftermath (including a rewritten version a few years later as late-night Hollywood entertainment featuring delicious drag, young Judy Garland, and perhaps even deeper use of Yiddish). Join us.

Harvard-educated scholar Eve Sicular's curatorial experiences at YIVO Institute Film & Photo Archives and MoMA's landmark Yiddish movie retrospective helped shape her "Yiddish Celluloid Closet" lecture/publications (inspired by Vito Russo z"l) as well as recent research on Yiddish /noir director Edgar Ulmer's "Canon of Cinema Contagion." As bandleader, producer and show creator, she has also led both Metropolitan Klezmer and Isle of Klezbos from her drumkit for decades, releasing seven albums, "Music in Yiddish Cinema" performances, and the Off-Off Broadway hit "J.Edgar Klezmer: Songs from My Grandmother's FBI Files."

Please register using the button above. We gather on Zoom and you will receive the Zoom address upon registration. Registration also gives you the opportunity to make a donation to support this program.

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See you then. It will be a mekhayeh!