Irving Place Theatre facts for kids
The Irving Place Theatre was a famous building in Manhattan, New York City. It was located near Union Square. Built in 1888, it was used for many different things. It was a German-language theater, a Yiddish theatre, a place for burlesque shows, a meeting hall for unions, and even a movie theater. The building was torn down in 1984.
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History of the Irving Place Theatre
The first building on this spot was called Irving Hall. It opened in 1860. People used it for dances, talks, and music concerts. It was also a meeting place for a part of the city's Democratic Party for many years.
The building was rebuilt and opened again in 1888. It was then called Amberg's German Theatre. Gustav Amberg managed it, and it showed plays in German. In 1893, Heinrich Conried took over. He changed the name to Irving Place Theatre. A play called Narrentanz (The Fool´s Game) first opened here on November 13, 1912.
In 1918, the theater became home to the Yiddish Art Theater company. Maurice Schwartz managed this group. By the 1920s, the theater showed both Yiddish plays and burlesque shows. Harry Lubin, who later became famous for music in The Outer Limits, was the music director here in the 1920s and 1930s.
In 1939, Clemente Giglio turned the theater into a movie house. It showed Italian films. In 1940, a group of actors called the "Merely Players" took over. They put on plays, but other theater unions protested their shows. During World War II, the theater showed movies and held folk dance events. It often showed Soviet propaganda films and French movies.
Ethnic Theaters and Immigrants
Many different kinds of theaters were created by and for immigrants in the United States. These "ethnic stages" were important for people who came from other countries. They showed plays that were about the lives and feelings of immigrants. This helped immigrants remember and share their culture.
Places like Little Germany in New York or Chinatown in San Francisco were full of immigrant communities. But their theaters were often hidden from outsiders. First-generation immigrants liked plays in their home language. Their children, the second generation, often preferred mainstream English plays. Even with these differences, ethnic theaters lasted for many decades because new immigrants kept coming. When movies became popular, immigrants also started watching American films. This helped them learn about their new home.
Vaudeville shows were another popular type of entertainment. They were different from ethnic theaters. Ethnic theaters, like Yiddish or Italian ones, wanted to keep old-world cultures alive. They helped immigrants feel like they belonged to a community. Vaudeville, however, often showed funny, exaggerated characters of different ethnic groups. Even though these characters were sometimes not very nice, immigrants still watched vaudeville. They saw parts of their own lives in these shows.
The Irving Place as a German Theater
In 1893, Heinrich Conried, an immigrant from Poland, renamed the theater to Irving Place Theater. He was a director and manager. He made the theater very successful until 1903. Conried wanted to attract German-speaking people in New York. He offered many different plays each week. This included classic plays and comedies. His theater was known for having a wide variety of shows. They also showed musical plays that were popular in Germany.
Conried also tried to reach out to students at universities like Yale and Harvard. He brought German classic plays and comedies to them. This encouraged students to come to the Irving Place Theater. In 1901, his company performed a play called Minna von Barheim at Yale. In 1903, after managing the Irving Place for ten years, Conried became the director of the Metropolitan Opera. He stayed as director of the Irving Place until he got sick in 1908.
German theaters like the Irving Place faced challenges. They wanted to show classic German plays. But they also wanted to attract American audiences by showing German versions of popular American plays. The audience was also split. Older German immigrants liked traditional plays. Younger, Americanized Germans preferred popular comedies. Conried tried to please everyone by offering both types of plays. He believed German theater should keep German culture alive in America.
Actor Rudolf Christians took over the Irving Place Theater in 1913. He directed the company until 1918. Christians also wanted to show great modern plays and classics. Under him, George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion was shown in German for the first time in the U.S. Both Christians and Conried wanted to attract non-German speakers, but German immigrants were their main audience.
Before America joined World War I, the New York Times said the Irving Place Theater showed German patriotism. After America entered the war, German patriotism decreased. Germany became America's enemy. In 1918, the Irving Place Theater stopped being a German company. Many things caused German theaters to close. These included anti-German feelings, less interest from German-Americans, and new entertainment like movies and English-language plays.
The Irving Place as a Yiddish Theater
By 1910, Yiddish theater was very popular in New York City's Lower East Side. Yiddish groups started taking over many German theaters. From the late 1910s to the early 1920s, Yiddish theater moved north. It came to Irving Place. This showed that the Jewish immigrant community was spreading out.
The Irving Place theater was taken over by Maurice Schwartz in 1918. He was a Jewish actor, director, and producer. He changed the name to the new Yiddish Art Theater. His theater did well until it closed in 1950.
Yiddish Theater started in Europe in the early 1700s. It came to the United States with many immigrants from Eastern Europe. It was very popular in New York City from the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. Immigrants wanted Yiddish theater to offer good entertainment. It helped them escape and remember their home traditions.
When the new Yiddish Art Theater first opened in 1918, it was not a big success. But it became popular with plays like Peretz Hershbein's The Forgotten Nook. These plays showed peaceful village life, which immigrants loved. The Yiddish Art Theater at Irving Place focused on quality. They carefully practiced plays and acting. Yiddish theater was also a way to learn about other cultures. Immigrants could learn about world literature by watching translated classic plays. They could also learn about American culture through translated American plays.
After World War I, Yiddish theater in America started to struggle. Fewer immigrants came to the country. Also, Jewish communities moved away from old neighborhoods in New York City. Immigrants became more Americanized. This meant they used less Yiddish language and watched less Yiddish theater. English words started appearing in Yiddish plays. American plays also influenced Yiddish productions. Just like in German theaters, younger immigrants preferred English-language shows and movies.
Over time, fewer people watched Yiddish theater. Plays had shorter runs. Like theater in general, Yiddish theater declined when movies and television became popular. The rise of Hebrew also affected the Yiddish language and theater. Sadly, historical events also damaged Yiddish culture. However, today there are Jewish groups that still support theater events. Many people are still interested in Yiddish theater. It helps American Jews remember their ancestors and cultural traditions.
In culture
The theater is the place where a fictional play from 2013, called The Nance, is set.
See also
In Spanish: Teatro de Arte Yiddish para niños
