An Evening of Singing and Schmoozing
For years, Steven Skybell dreamed of taking to the stage as the iconic milkman in perpetual conversation with God. So, when he heard that the National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene (NYTF) was mounting a new production of Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish, he couldn’t resist shading the truth. “Sure, I speak the language,” he assured his agent, although his command of Yiddish was pretty much limited to what he’d picked up from listening to his grandparents when they didn’t want him to understand.
After all, he grew up in one of just 100 Jewish families in the decidedly un-Yiddishkeit shtetl that is Lubbock.
But after his triumph as the father caught between tradition, modernity and antisemitism, Skybell was hooked. While the rest of us were eating our way through the pandemic and binge-watching Netflix series, he was immersing himself in Yiddish and working with Zalmen Mlotek from NYTF to research, translate and master traditional Yiddish songs.
In January 2021, they offered the Temple Emanu-El Streicker Center online audience a preview of Skybell’s new take on our minnesängers, Jewish troubadours. Now, as Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish is coming back Off-Broadway, the duo returns in person for their second act on the Upper East Side.
As the Artistic Director of the NYTF, the longest continuously running Yiddish theater in the world, Zalmen Mlotek is an internationally recognized authority on Yiddish folk and theater music.
Steven Skybell has had a long stage career including in Wicked, The Full Monty, Pal Joey, Fiddler on the Roof (2015 revival) and numerous Shakespeare plays. He was nominated for a Drama Desk Award and won the Lucille Lortel Award for Best Actor in a Musical for his portrayal of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish.