The Megillah and Mike Burstyn

אַ פֿריילעכן פּורים!


Interview (part 1) with Mike Burstyn, discussing
the recently released stream of Megillah Cycle, which premiered
February 21. The second part will be airing the following
Wednesday, March 3, 2021.


Burstyn directed Megillah Cycle and performed three of its roles.
The show is his adaptation of Itzik Manger’s famed Megile-Lider
(Poems of the Megillah), a book published in Warsaw in 1936 as a
playfully anachronistic version of the Book of Esther and the
traditional Purim-shpil. Burstyn's connection to this material is
long and deep, having begun his career as a child actor in the
famed Burstein family of Yiddish singers and actors who staged
the original Megillah of Itzik Manger, a Yiddish-language musical
that became an overnight sensation in Israel in the 1960s, and
eventually came to Broadway. From that success Burstyn went on to
stardom in Israeli film and TV/film/theater internationally in
English, Hebrew, Yiddish and other languages, as well as being a
singer with a great many recordings to his credit, also in
English, Yiddish, Hebrew and other languages. For more info on
Mike Burstyn, visit: https://www.mikeburstyn.com


Besides Burstyn, the cast of Megillah Cycle features Shane Baker
(Tevye Served Raw), Yidlife Crisis performers Eli Batalion (Stage
Fright) and Jamie Elman (California Dreamin’), Avi Hoffman (Too
Jewish?), Daniel Kahn (Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish), Lia
Koenig (Shtisel), Noah Mitchel (My Favorite Year), Eleanor Reissa
(Those Were the Days), Joshua Reuben (Shakespeare in Yiddish),
Allen Lewis Rickman (A Serious Man), Yelena Shmulenson (Orange Is
the New Black), and Suzanne Toren (From Door to Door).


The streamed production of Megillah Cycle, presented in Yiddish
with English-subtitled translation, also features interspersed
English rhymes written by the late Joe Darion (Man of La Mancha).
Original artwork is by Adam Whiteman, with music, editing and
technical supervision by Uri Schreter. It was produced by Shane
Baker, executive director of the Congress for Jewish Culture. For
more information and to view the stream, visit
CongressforJewishCulture.org.


Participating in the interview are historian Prof. Sholem
Beinfeld and Yiddish scholar Dovid
Braun, along with regular host Mark David.


Intro instrumental music: DEM HELFANDS TANTS, an instrumental
track from the CD Jeff Warschauer: The Singing Waltz

Other music (excerpts):

Soundtrack excerpts from Megillah Cycle, composed by Uri
Schreter, featuring Abigale Reisman on violin

Cast: Excerpt of Dos Lid Funem Loyfer, from The Megillah
of Itzik Manger (Israeli cast album)





Air date: February 24, 2021