Eleanor Reissa

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Eleanor Reissa is an American actress, singer, theatre director, playwright, librettist, choreographer, and translator based in New York City. She works and performs in English and Yiddish speaking stages. On Broadway, she was in the cast of Paula Vogel's Indecent as well as being nominated for a Tony Award as the director of the musical, Those Were the Days.^[1] (which she also choreographed and starred in). She interprets and performs of Yiddish theatre and song. In April 2019, Reissa was the director, co-creater and featured vocalist in From Shtetl to Stage: A Celebration of Yiddish Music and Culture at Carnegie Hall.^[2]

Background and education[]

Eleanor Reissa was born in Brooklyn, New York. Her parents were born in Poland, and fought and lived through the Holocaust. In America they were both sweatshop workers. Reissa is a product of the New York City public school system and received her Bachelor of Arts in Speech and Theatre at Brooklyn College, graduating cum laude.^[3]

Directing[]

Reissa's directing debut on Broadway garnered her a Tony Award nomination for Those Were the Days, which she also choreographed and starred in. Other New York directing credits include: Cowgirls (1995 Outer Critics Circle Award nomination), Echoes of the War (2005 Drama Desk Award nomination),^[4] and The Soldier's Wife (two 2006 Drama Desk Award nominations).^[5] In Yiddish, her New York directing credits include: Got Fun Nekome (God of Vengeance), Hershele Ostropolyer (adapted by Reissa), Zise Khaloymes (based on her English language play, Sweet Dreams), and Yoshke Muzikant: The Klezmer’s Tale.

She was artistic director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene for five years.^[6]

Music and recordings[]

Reissa has sung in numerous American musicals in the theatre, including Tintypes, The Rise of David Levinsky, and Fiddler on the Roof.

Reissa's singing in Yiddish has earned her the title of the "reigning queen of Yiddish Cabaret".^[7] She has been featured on several music recordings, including Pearls of Yiddish Song, Remember the Children, Going Home: Gems of Yiddish Song, Songs in the Key of Yiddish, and in 2015, Just Add Water (Eleanor Reissa and Di Boyess).^[8]

She frequently collaborates with Frank London of the Klezmatics and the Klezmer Brass Allstars, performing together internationally and recorded in 2016 Vilde Mekhaye (Wild Ecstasy). They have performed in festivals and venues throughout the world including Berlin, Toronto, Paris, Vienna, and in New York City at Joe's Pub and Feinstein's/54 Below.^[9]

Most recently, she and Frank London performed their new program Kurt Weill in New York at the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau, (Germany) featuring Anthony Coleman, Greg Cohen, and Billy Martin.

Playwriting[]

Reissa received the Dorothy Silver Playwriting Award for her play, Wishful Thinking and then was a finalist a few years later for her play, Thicker Than Water. Reissa's plays have been published in an anthology called The Last Survivor and other Modern Yiddish Plays. Her play, The Last Dinosaur, was a finalist for the Actors Theatre of Louisville’s Heideman Award.

Adaptations and translations[]

Eleanor Reissa was commissioned to adapt the story The Adventures of Hershele Ostropolyer (also known as Hershel of Ostropol) as a musical for the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, where it played for two consecutive seasons, starring Mike Burstyn. It then played in Israel at Yiddishpiel where it was nominated for the Israel Prize. Reissa was then commissioned by Yiddishpiel to adapt the 1937 film, Yidl Mitn Fidl to a stage musical in 2014, where it has a successful run.

Most recently Eleanor Reissa received a commission by the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene to translate Paddy Chayevsky’s The Tenth Man, into Yiddish (with Harvey Varga) which is slated for their 2020 season which she will direct.^[10]

Currently she is working on the libretto for the opera Taibele and Her Demon, based on the short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer with composer Judd Greenstein^[11]

Directing[]

Theater acting (partial list)[]

Film and television acting (partial list)[]

Music/recordings list[]

• Pearls of Yiddish Song (1990)
• Remember the Children (1991)
• Going Home: Gems of Yiddish Song (1992)
• Songs in the Key of Yiddish (2002)
• Just Add Water with Di Boyess (2015)
• Wild Ecstasy (Vilde Mekhaye)' with Frank London (2017)

References[]