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Buloff, Joseph.
Collection is open to the public. Library policy on photography and photocopying will apply. Advance notice may be required.
The Joseph Buloff papers contain scripts, photographs, programs, fliers, reviews, contracts and notes. The scripts include many of the plays in which Buloff performed, as well as English adaptations of Yiddish works,including Sholem Aleichem's The Crabby Crawler, Eternal Life, God Will Provide, The Mad Batlan, and Tevye and His Seven Daughters, as well as Isaac Leib Peretz's Temptationand Ossip Dymow's The Singer of His Sorrow. Another scriptof note is a copy of the Broadway comedy, The Kibitzer, co-written by Jo Swerling and Edward G. Robinson. Also included among the scripts are a number of works adapted from world literature, by authors such as Anton Chekhov and Nikolai Gogol. The collection includes manuscripts anddrafts of Buloff's book, Beggar in Paradise, based on Fishke der krume by Mendele Mohker Sforim. Among Kadison'sworks are an essay, My conception of the part of Linda in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman (the couple appeared in a Yiddish-language version), as well as her drafts of her autobiography.
Actor and director Joseph Buloff (1899-1985), along with his wife, Luba Kadison, were among the most prominent stars of Yiddish theater, in Europe, and, later, in the United States. Buloff, who was born in Vilnius, Lithuania,began his career in 1915 touring with the Vilna troupe during World War I and remained with them during the early1920s, appearing in Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard, aswell as works by Yiddish authors. He left Europe in 1926 and immigrated to the United States when he was invited tojoin Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theater and made his American debut in Ossip Dymov's The Tenth Commandment. After several appearances with the company, Buloff left toform his own Yiddish Folks Theatre. He appeared in over 225 plays in Yiddish, Russian and English-language theaterover the course of his long career. Buloff made his Broadway debut in 1936 in John Crump's short-lived play, Don't Look Now. Among his more notable roles on Broadway was as a 1942 replacement for Morris Carnovsky in the partof Mr. Appolpolous, the Greek landlord, in My Sister Eileen. Buloff also created the role of Ali Hakim, the Persian peddler, in the Theatre Guild's production of Oklahoma! (1943) and he appeared in the 1979 revival of Arthur Miller's The Price. In addition to performing, Buloff directed many productions, including the long running Broadway comedy, Mrs. McThing (1952), which featured Helen Hayes. He also distinguished himself as a writer by adapting English language plays into Yiddish as dramatic sketches as vehicles for himself. In 1980, he directed and appeared in The Chekhov Sketchbook, which he adapted with his wife from short stories by the author. Buloff worked in television and films and toured South America, Europe, South Africa, and Israel, often working with Luba Kadison. Although Kadison also had been a star of Yiddish theater, she felt limited by her accent and worked very little as an actress in English-language theater, but collaborated with her husband on many projects. When Joseph Buloff died in 1985, Kadison donatedtheir archive to the Harvard College library. She also worked on getting his book, Fun altn markplats (From the Old Marketplace) translated into English; it was publishedin 1991. Her own memoirs, On Stage, Off Stage (1992), which had been written in collaboration with Buloff, won the 1994 National Book Award.
View of the Kremlin, ca. 1790. NYPL Slavic and Baltic Collectionss.
One of 700,000 pictures in the NYPL Digital Gallery
