When I saw that the National Dance Education Organization was having a panel discussion entitled “Celebrating Jewish American Contributions to the Field of Dance,” I marked the date (May 24th) on my calendar to make sure to zoom in! I missed the actual time, but it was recorded, so I watched a day later. I was half listening when one of the panel members, Danny Lewis, mentioned being a part of the Yiddish Theatre and said how much he enjoyed working with Felix Fibich! Wow… I had worked with Fibich too and hadn’t thought about that experience in years!
In the fall of 1961, a friend from Juilliard, Margaret Gettleman, recommended me to Fibich because she was participating in a children’s theatre production he was choreographing, and he needed another dancer. That’s how I became a wood sprite named Yok Tan in the Jewish Theatre for Children’s production of “To Wake the King.” Each Sunday from November to April we performed for a large audience of nearly 1,000 children between the ages of 8 to 14 at a theater on the Upper East Side.
The Jewish Theatre for Children was founded and directed by Samuel J. Citron. I have a vague memory of his role as director of “To Wake the King” and found it interesting to Google and learn a little bit about him. Born in Poland in 1908, he immigrated to the United States when he was thirteen. He became a lawyer in New York and then earned a Hebrew Teacher’s License and transitioned into Jewish Education full time. Employed by the Jewish Education Committee, he directed its School Dramatics Department and was chair of the Audio-Visual Materials Committee. For twenty years the theatre he founded presented programs for children each Sunday. He was also often the author of the plays, as was the case with “To Wake the King” which was based on an old legend that says King David is really not dead but asleep in a cave!
I must admit I don’t remember much about Felix Fibich’s choreography other than an emphasis on how we used our arms and hands as wood sprites, and I think some of it might have been improvised. I do remember it was great fun to put on the makeup and costume each Sunday and to receive payment for the performance! I seem to remember that we received $25 for each performance. That was pretty good considering it was 1961-62. We also received reviews in New York City papers.
In my next blog I will share more about Felix Fibich. Danny’s presentation as part of the panel “Celebrating Jewish Americans Contributions to the Field of Dance” is motivation to learn more about the person I worked with 60 years ago.