Peretz Hirshbein ; 7 November 1880, Kleszczele, Grodno Governorate – 16 August 1948, Los Angeles) was a Yiddish-language playwright, novelist, journalist, travel writer, and theater director. Because his work focused more on mood than plot, he became known as "the Yiddish Maeterlinck". His work as a playwright and through his own short-lived but influential troupe, laid much of the groundwork for the second golden age of Yiddish theater that began shortly after the end of World War I. The dialogue of his plays is consistently vivid, terse, and naturalistic. Unusually for a Yiddish playwright, most of his works have pastoral settings: he had grown up the son of a miller, and made several attempts at farming.
Peretz Hirschbein (second from left), with Mendl Elkin, Uri Zvi Greenberg, Peretz Markish, Melech Ravitch and I. J. Singer in 1922.
The Yiddish Art Theatre was a Yiddish theatre company of the 20th century in New York City. The organization was founded in 1918 by actor and impresario Maurice Schwartz, to present serious Yiddish drama and works from world literature in Yiddish.
Louis N. Jaffe Theatre, home of the company from 1926
Yiddish Art Theatre Ticket Stub for "Canada"
Advertisement on rear of ticket envelope for "The Forward."
Berta Gersten with the Yiddish Art Theatre's troupe on tour in London in 1935