Goldfaden and his troupe return to Russia after the war. He takes over the stage at the Odessa’s German Craftsman Club, a venue that had served Odessa’s German ethnic population.

Permission for Yiddish Theater in Russia

In the wake of a number of locally-authorized productions of Yiddish theater in Odessa, Russia’s Chief Office of Press Affairs (the GUpDP) in St. Petersburg grants permission to Goldfaden to perform Yiddish theater throughout the empire.

Bernhardt in the U.S.

Sarah Bernhardt makes her first American theatrical tour.

Assassination of Alexander II: Russian government temporarily shuts down most newspapers and theaters throughout the empire. Pogroms erupt in waves throughout the southwestern provinces of the Russian Empire.

(August) Yiddish theater is banned throughout the Russian Empire by a circular issued by the Czar’s deputy of internal affairs. Goldfaden attempts to reverse the ban to no avail. The ban forces almost all Yiddish actors out of the Russian Empire throughout the 1880s. Goldfaden leaves in 1887. Most travel to London and New York City. Those who remain put on small productions outside of the empire’s major cities where the ban is strictly enforced.

First Yiddish Theater Built

Opening of Hebrew Dramatic Club, the first purpose-built Yiddish theatre in London. A Yiddish theater troupe had arrived as early as 1883.

The Golden Era of Yiddish theater in New York City, characterized by relative stability and prosperity.

Immigration Act of 1903 is passed.

The Grand Street Theater opens at the corner of Chrystie and Grand Streets in New York.  It is the first theater house built specifically for the purpose of producing Yiddish plays. By this time, the Bowery counted three large-capacity theaters used for Yiddish performances: together the Windsor Theatre, the Thalia Theatre, and the People’s Theatre seated nine thousand.

Jacob Ben-Ami begins his performance career in Russia at age 13 as a soprano in a synagogue choir that also occasionally provided background music for plays and pageants in the Russian theater.

The Darling of the Gods is staged in London

One of David Belasco’s most spectacular productions is remounted in England. This is an early example of the reversal in the theatrical trade across the Atlantic, which until this time had been almost entirely one way.

The Revolution of 1905

The eruption of a wave of mass political and social unrest that spread through vast areas of the Russian Empire became the Russian Revolution of 1905. It led to Constitutional Reform including the establishment of the State Duma, the multi-party system, and the Russian Constitution of 1906.

Yiddish theater activity increases in the Russian Empire in the wake of the 1905 revolution. Still, producers of Yiddish theater must secure government permission.

Founding of The Literary Troupe

Playwright and director Mark Arnshteyn collaborates with Avrom-Yitskhok Kaminski to found The Literary Troupe, which includes Ester-Rokhl Kaminska. With a repertoire of plays by Gordin as well as Dovid Pinski, Sholem Aleichem, and Arnshteyn, the company tours the Russian Empire.

Founding of The Jewish National Theater

By Nahum Lipovski in Vilna with low-priced tickets. The theater was allowed to exist until World War I, when Yiddish was deemed an enemy language.

The premiere of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance at the Kammerspiele a satellite stage of Germany’s leading playhouse the Deutsches Theater, under the celebrated artistic director Max Reinhardt. Yiddish theater would continue to have a presence in Germany.

David Pinski’s The Treasure is performed for the first time in Yiddish in New York.

The Beilis Affair (1911-1913). The trial of a Russian Jew named Mendel Beilis who is accused of the ritual murder of 12-year old boy in Kiev.

Waves of pogroms in Ukraine during the Russian Civil War.

Yiddish theater set-designer Boris Aronson helps organize an exhibition of Jewish art that included works by himself as well as Joseph Chaikov, El Lisitsky, Nisson Shifrin, and Alexandr Tyshler.

The founding of KHAD GADYO, the Yiddish-Polish experimental marionette theater by Moyshe Broderzon and Yitskhok Broyner.

Indecent

The arrest of the producer and cast of the English-language Broadway production of Sholem Asch’s God of Vengeance.

Ida Kaminska and Zygmunt Turkov establish the Esther-Rokhl Kaminska Theater Museum in her Warsaw apartment

Sholem Schwartzbard assassinates the Ukrainian nationalist Symmon Petliura. Alter Kacyzne will write a play about this entitled Schwartzsbard.

After a tour abroad, Habimah splits, some of the company remaining in the United State, while other members reestablish Habimah in Palestine.

The founding of SAMBATYON, “a literary-artistic theatrical review” by Yitzhok Nozshik in Vilna.

Maurice Schwartz’s Yiddish Art Theater opens at Second Avenue and 12^th Street in New York.

Michał Weichert's Young Theater is founded. The company came under continuous government pressure to alter its activist repertoire; in 1937 it is forced to move to Vilna and changes its name to New Theater (Nay-teater), under which it performed until 1939.

Federal Theater Project begins.

Clifford Odets (ne Gorodets) Awake and Sing premiers for the Group Theater, with set designs by Boris Aronson.

Germany invades Poland