Joel Schechter has rediscovered the funny and often politically-charged plays of the American Yiddish theatre of the 1930s. In Messiahs of 1933 he celebrates their satire, their radical imagination, and their commitment to social change. He introduces readers to the once-famous writers and actors - Moishe Nadir, David Pinski, Yosl Cutler, and others - who brought into artistic form their visions of peace, social justice, and satire for all. Messiahs of 1933 greatly enlarges our understanding of Yiddish theatre and culture in the United States. It examines the innovative stage performances...

Eighteenth-Century Brechtians looks at stage satires by John Gay, Henry Fielding, George Farquhar, Charlotte Charke, David Garrick and their contemporaries through the lens of Brecht's theory and practice. Discussing the actor mutiny of 1733, theater censorship, controversial plays and Fielding's forgery of an actor's autobiography, Joel Schechter contends that some subversive Augustan and Georgian artists were in fact early Brechtians. He also reconstructs lost episodes in theater history including Fielding's last days as a stage satirist before his Little Haymarket theater was...

Eighteenth-Century Brechtians looks at stage satires by John Gay, Henry Fielding, George Farquhar, Charlotte Charke, David Garrick and their contemporaries through the lens of Brecht's theory and practice. Discussing the actor mutiny of 1733, theater censorship, controversial plays and Fielding's forgery of an actor's autobiography, Joel Schechter contends that some subversive Augustan and Georgian artists were in fact early Brechtians. He also reconstructs lost episodes in theater history including Fielding's last days as a stage satirist before his Little Haymarket theater was...