Dora Wasserman
Encyclopedia
Youth Time
She was born June 30, 1919 at Jytomyr in UkraineUkraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
less than a handful of years after the Russian Revolution where she learned about and performed in live-performance theatres. She is the younger child of a modest Jewish family. His father is a locksmith. After studies at the School of singing Rimsky-Korsakov of Moscow, she enters to the Jewish Theater of Moscow ( the GOSET), where from she goes out in 1939, after 4 years of formation with great masters particularly Shloyme Mikhoels. With her diploma, Dora Wasserman quits Moscow for Ukraine, but the second world war
The Second World War
The Second World War may refer to:*World War II, a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945*The Second World War , a history, originally published in six volumes, of the period from the end of the First World War to July 1945, written by Winston Churchill...
forces him to leave in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a transcontinental country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the ninth largest country in the world, it is also the world's largest landlocked country; its territory of is greater than Western Europe...
. She makes theater tours in Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
and in Tadjikistan. Here she meet Sam Wasserman, a Polish refugee whom she married on March 8, 1943. Ella, their first daughter, was born in Jambul
Jambul
Jambul is an evergreen tropical tree in the flowering plant family Myrtaceae. Jambul is native to Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia...
on January 19, 1944. They survived the war. Dora Wasserman heard nothing from her family for decades. Sam and Dora Wasserman joined the stream of refugees moving from one transit camp to another, finally arriving in Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...
. At the Rothschild Hospital, Dora Wasserman began to perform for the refugees, creating programs and entertaining in various displaced persons camps. In 1947 their second daughter Bryna was born in Vienna.
Arrived at Canada
The Wassermans arrived in MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
on January 21, 1950. Intent on finding work, she began to seek a place for herself, approaching Yiddish cultural and community organizations. Her activities were many and varied: recitations in schools, singing for organizations, performing at festivals and conventions. While her connection with visiting and local writers was sustained in weekly literary evenings, she also began to hold children’s theater workshops at the Jewish Public Library of Montreal. Wasserman teach Yiddish's lessons and introduces young Montreal Jews to the Yiddish Theater.The group of gifted youngsters whom she gathered around her eventually grew into the backbone of her adult company, to which she attracted performers to form the Yiddish Drama Group in 1956.
Montreal Yiddish Theatre
In 1958, she founded of what is today called (MontrealMontreal
Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America...
's) Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre
Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre
The Dora Wasserman Yiddish Theatre, a branch ofMontreal's Segal Centre for Performing Arts was founded in 1958 by Dora Wasserman , a Ukrainian actress, playwright, and theatre director.Their first play was The Innkeeper....
. With the support of the comedian Gratien Gélinas
Gratien Gélinas
Gratien Gélinas, was a Canadian author, playwright, actor, director, producer and administrator who is considered one of the founders of modern Canadian theatre and film....
, she succeeds in producing Yiddish shows with amateur adults and children.Between 1958 and 1963, Wasserman mounted many productions, including Hanna Szenes by Aaron Megged, The Lottery by Sholem Aleichem, Sholem Asch’s Kiddush Hashem and Uncle Moses. By 1964, when Yiddish theater, both amateur and professional, was disappearing the world over, Wasserman determined that her group needed to grow not only in scope of repertoire but in the establishment of a permanent venue. In 1967 the newly-opened [Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts] became a permanent home for the Yiddish Theater. In 1968 a fertile collaboration began between Wasserman and the composer Eli Rubinstein which made possible the dynamic, large-scale musical comedies that challenged her group and elicited enthusiastic response from audiences and critics alike.
Between 1974 and 1988 Wasserman worked with Isaac Bashevis, adapting six of his works for her company, among them In My Father’s Court (1974), Yentl (1979), Gimpel The Fool (1982) and The Ball (based on The Gentleman from Frampol) (1988). In 1992 the Yiddish version of Les Belles Soeurs by Michel Tremblay
Michel Tremblay
Michel Tremblay, CQ is a Canadian novelist and playwright.Tremblay grew up in the Plateau Mont-Royal, a French-speaking neighbourhood of Montreal, at the time of his birth a neighbourhood with a working-class character and joual dialect, something that would heavily influence his work...
, received a dynamic staging, furthering ties with Montreal’s French people.
In 1992 Dora Wasserman was awarded the highest honor bestowed on civilians by the Canadian government: The Order of Canada . She makes many Yiddish classics or translates authors contemporary as Michel Tremblay
Michel Tremblay
Michel Tremblay, CQ is a Canadian novelist and playwright.Tremblay grew up in the Plateau Mont-Royal, a French-speaking neighbourhood of Montreal, at the time of his birth a neighbourhood with a working-class character and joual dialect, something that would heavily influence his work...
. In 1996, she officially handed direction of the Montreal Yiddish Theater to her daughter Bryna.
Dora Wasserman died in December 2003 at Montreal.
Although Wasserman did not live to see it, her daughters Ella (who lives in Israel) and Bryna (who lives in Montreal) helped celebrate the 50th anniversary of their mother's eponymous accomplishment.
External links
- Gail Geltner, Dora Wasserman, Jewish Women Encyclopedia
- an article of Jewish Theatre.com
Book
- (in French) Jean-Marc Larrue. “Le théâtre yiddish à Montréal” Éditions Jeu, 1996.