Molly Picon and Yiddish Theater of New York Shine in Exhibition at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts

Molly Picon: Yiddish Star, American Star Opens June 26

Molly Picon. Portrait distributed by the William Morris Agency, 1963. Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts.

With more than 200 items of theater memorabilia, including rarely seen production photos, programs, original sheet music, set designs, scripts, costumes, posters, videos and recordings, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts examines the career of the late multi-faceted actress Molly Picon in a new exhibition. Molly Picon: Yiddish Star, American Star traces the career of this favorite performer of the Yiddish-speaking world, who in her later years became a leading actress of the English-speaking world with starring roles in such plays as Milk and Honey and A Majority of One, and such films as Come Blow Your Horn and Fiddler on the Roof. It also sheds light on the history of the Yiddish theater in New York and reflects the contributions immigrant cultures have made to the American entertainment industry. The exhibition will be on view in the Vincent Astor Gallery at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza, from Tuesday, June 26 through Saturday, September 22, 2007. Admission is free. For further information, telephone 212.870.1630 or visit the Library's website at www.nypl.org/ .

Molly Picon: Yiddish Star, American Star is organized chronologically and follows Molly Picon's career as she and her audience transitioned from the Yiddish-speaking world to the English-speaking world. One of the first images is of Molly, called "Baby Margaret," performing her act "Don't You Want a Little Doggie?" at a nickelodeon. A postcard advertisement of a Viennese production and a photograph of the New York production depict Molly in one of her biggest hits, the musical Yankele, which she performed thousands of times in her long career. For another hit musical, Reyzele , in which Molly made her opening entrance on a horse, the opening night invitation sent to the prominent theater critic Brooks Atkinson is displayed. The exhibition also features the program covers for the New York and the Boston productions of Dos tsirkus meydel (The Circus Girl), "a romantic operetta" that featured Molly climbing a rope and doing a trapeze act. A 1929 program from the Palace Theater gives a "Welcome" to Molly.

There is a newspaper caricature by Al Hirschfeld of Molly Picon, Kenneth LeRoy, and Joseph Buloff in a scene from Morning Star, in which Molly made her English-language Broadway debut. She starred with Robert Morley in the London production of A Majority of One, from which a program and photographs are included. A window card from the Paper Mill Playhouse shows Molly starring in another production of A Majority of One. Sheet music, photographs, a record jacket, even Molly's "Milk and Honey Pudding" recipe are included in a section devoted to Milk and Honey, Molly's breakthrough in the English-language American theater. Among her costumes on display are ones from her roles in Yankele, Hello Molly, The Jolly Orphan, Here Runs the Bride, and A Majority of One. Molly's radio and television careers are depicted in photographs and scripts.

The videos in the exhibition include two Vitaphone film shorts, excerpts from Yidl mitn fidl and Mamele, her two most important Yiddish films; and a song from her one-woman concert, An Afternoon with Molly Picon. The ambient sound in the gallery will include both her Yiddish and English recordings.

"We are always pleased when we can illuminate specific aspects of American performing arts," said Jacqueline Z. Davis, the Barbara G. and Lawrence A. Fleischman Executive Director of The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts. "The Molly Picon exhibition gives the example of a very popular performer, who crossed over from an ethnic theatrical tradition to the mainstream."

Molly Picon: Yiddish Star, American Star is curated by Dr. Diane Cypkin, Professor of Media and Communication Arts at Pace University and herself a performer, who has appeared in many Yiddish and English language productions. The exhibition is presented in cooperation with the Museum of the City of New York. Material in this exhibition is from the Library for the Performing Arts's Billy Rose Theatre Division, Theatre on Film and Tape Archive; the Jerome Robbins Dance Division; the Music Division; and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound, as well as from The New York Public Library's Dorot Jewish Division and the Irma and Paul Milstein Division of United States History, Local History & Genealogy of the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; as well as the Picture Collection and Donnell Media Center, The Branch Libraries. Additional materials are from the Museum of the City of New York; the YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, New York; and the Forward Association. Picon's performances on stage and film are shown with permission of The National Center for Jewish Film at Brandeis University; United Artists Film, Inc.; and the Coalition of Broadway Unions and Guilds. Vitaphone short films have been provided through the courtesy of Ron Hutchinson of The Vitaphone Project.

Public Programs

A related series of programs is being presented in the Library's Bruno Walter Auditorium. Admission, which is free, is first-come, first served. For information, telephone 212.642.0142 or go to the Library's website at www.nypl.org/lpaprograms.

Tuesday, June 26, at 3:00 p.m.
The Yiddish Cinema: Molly Picon's Celebration of Jewish Life
Lecture by Eric A. Goldman

Wednesday, June 27, at 3:00 p.m.
Molly Picon and Her Yiddish Music
Lecture-Concert by Dr. Diane Cypkin; Lena Panfilova, piano

Thursday, June 28, at 6:00 p.m.
Molly Picon and Milk and Honey: Memories of the 1961 Broadway musical
With Stuart Hodes and Donald Saddler

About Molly Picon
For more than 70 years, Molly Picon delighted audiences with her comedy, her singing and dancing, and her acrobatics. She was dubbed "The Sweetheart of Second Avenue" (Second Avenue was the geographical heart of New York's Yiddish theater by the 1920s) for her many successes in musicals for which she often wrote the lyrics and, not only sang and danced, but somersaulted and cartwheeled across the stage. On Broadway, she starred in the Jerry Herman/Don Appell musical Milk and Honey, for which she received a Tony nomination. She received a Golden Globe nomination for her first Hollywood film, playing Frank Sinatra's mother in Come Blow Your Horn . She was a memorable Yente, the Matchmaker in the film of Fiddler on the Roof.

Although born in 1898 on New York's Lower East Side, as a young child she moved to Philadelphia, where she began performing in vaudeville and cabaret. Stranded in Boston in 1918 due to an influenza epidemic, she joined a Yiddish theater managed by Jacob Kalich, whom she married in 1919. They toured in Europe for two years to perfect Molly's Yiddish and give her more stage experience. They returned to New York and, in December of 1923, the 25-year-old Molly made her New York debut in the title role of the musical Yankele. This smash hit was just the beginning of a string of successes in the New York Yiddish theater. At the end of each New York season, Molly would tour her shows throughout America. A small, lithe, versatile actress, she often played young boys.   Her shows, her records, her films, and her radio programs won her a special place in the hearts of the Yiddish-speaking community. By the 1930s, famed movie director D.W. Griffith called Molly Picon "the most interesting actress in America." In 1936 and 1938, respectively, she made two Yiddish film classics: Yidl mitn fidl (released with the English title Yiddle With His Fiddle ) and Mamele . She made her English-language debut on Broadway in 1940 in Morning Star. Soon she was appearing in other English-speaking roles in theater, television, and films. She continued to perform her one-woman show, An Afternoon with Molly Picon , until just a few years before her death in 1992.

About The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts
The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts houses the world's most extensive combination of circulating, reference, and rare archival collections in its field. Its divisions are the Circulating Collections, Jerome Robbins Dance Division, Music Division, Billy Rose Theatre Division, and the Rodgers & Hammerstein Archives of Recorded Sound. The materials in its collections are available free of charge, along with a wide range of special programs, including exhibitions, seminars, and performances. An essential resource for everyone with an interest in the arts - whether professional or amateur - the Library is known particularly for its prodigious collections of non-book materials such as historic recordings, videotapes, autograph manuscripts, correspondence, sheet music, stage designs, press clippings, programs, posters, and photographs.

About The New York Public Library

The New York Public Library was created in 1895 with the consolidation of the private libraries of John Jacob Astor and James Lenox with the Samuel Jones Tilden Trust. The Library provides free and open access to its physical and electronic collections and information, as well as to its services. It comprises four research centers - the Humanities and Social Sciences Library; The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; and the Science, Industry and Business Library - and 87 Branch Libraries in Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx. Research and circulating collections combined total more than 50 million items. In addition, each year the Library presents thousands of exhibitions and public programs, which include classes in technology, literacy, and English as a second language. The New York Public Library serves over 15 million patrons who come through its doors annually and another 21 million users internationally, who access collections and services through its website, www.nypl.org.

Molly Picon: Yiddish Star, American Star is on view from June 26 through September 22, 2007 at The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman Center, 40 Lincoln Center Plaza. As of Monday, July 2, the Library's new exhibition hours are: Monday and Thursday from noon to 8 p.m.; Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; closed Sunday and holidays. (For the first week of the exhibition - June 26 - June 30, the exhibition hours will be Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday from 12 noon to 6 p.m.; and Thursday from 12 noon to 8 p.m.) Admission is free. For further exhibition information, telephone 212.870.1630 or visit the Library's website at www.nypl.org.

The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts gratefully acknowledges the leadership support of Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman. Additional support for exhibitions has been provided by Judy R. and Alfred A. Rosenberg and the Miriam and Harold Steinberg Foundation.

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Contact:                   Rima Corben                   212.592.7700 | rcorben@nypl.org

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