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
 

Norman Furman
 

Born in 1901 in Dortshev, Volin Gubernia, Russia.

In 1909 he came, together with his family, to America. Here he studied, and in 1915 graduated from the first radical Yiddish school et al of Joel Entin, while at the same time finishing public school, attending high school and afterwards a Yiddish teacher's seminary.

In 1927 he became the press agent for Paul Muni's acting on the English stage in "Four Walls", afterwards doing the same work for Edward G. Robinson.

In 1930 he crossed over to Yiddish radio and directed on station WBBC in Brooklyn, New York, which was the first one of the Yiddish radio programs, with an entire hour program named "the Yiddish Theatre on the Air", with the cooperation of the Yiddish Actors Union and with the participation of the famous Yiddish players.

When the "Forvets (Yiddish Forward)" went over to station WEVD, F. went over there and directed an entire line of theatre productions until 1952, when he began to manage a radio station in Boston, which also had a studio and theatre stage with six hundred places for seats. F. got the theatre free from the Yiddish Actors Union Union so that it was possible to make Yiddish theatre productions, in which  Michal Michalesko, Aaron Lebedeff, Nathan Goldberg, Roseta Bialis, Michael Rosenberg and others participated.

 

In 1957 he went again across to the radio station WEVD in New York, where he managed together with Henry Greenfield.

F. was Vice-President of the "Celia Adler Foundation and Book Committee".


Sh. E.


 

 

 

 


 

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Adapted from the original Yiddish text found within the  "Lexicon of the Yiddish Theatre" by Zalmen Zylbercweig, Volume 4, page 2529.
 

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