Eleanor Reissa
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.
. 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.
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.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, Echoes of the War, and The Soldier's Wife. In Yiddish, her New York directing credits include: Got Fun Nekome, Hershele Ostropolyer, Zise Khaloymes, and Yoshke Muzikant: The Klezmer’s Tale.She was artistic director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene for five years.
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". 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.
She frequently collaborates with Frank London of the Klezmatics and the Klezmer Brass Allstars, performing together internationally and recorded in 2016 Vilde Mekhaye . 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.
Most recently, she and Frank London performed their new program Kurt Weill in New York at the Kurt Weill Festival in Dessau, featuring Anthony Coleman, Greg Cohen, and Billy Martin.
Playrighting
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 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 which is slated for their 2020 season which she will direct.
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
Directing
| Year | Project | Role | Venue |
| 1989 | Cat on a Hot Tin Roof | Assistant Director | Broadway |
| 1991 | Those Were the Days | Director and Choreographer | Broadway |
| 1992 | A Stranger Among Us | Choreographer | Sidney Lumet feature film |
| 1994 | All That Glitters | Director | Women's Project NYC |
| 1995 | Cowgirls | Director and Choreographer | Minetta Lane Theatre |
| 1995 | My Fair Lady | Assistant Director | Broadway |
| 1996 | The Last Supper | Director | Florida |
| 1997 | Nothing like a Dame | Director | Broadway |
| 1998 | Songs of Paradise | Choreographer | The Public Theater |
| 1999 | Avenue X | Director and Choreographer | Marin Theatre Company |
| 2000 | Over the Rainbow: Yip Harburg's America | Director and Choreographer | Prince Music Theater |
| 2001 | Diana of Dobson's | Director | Mint Theater |
| 2001 | Screams of Kitty Genovese | Director | O'Neill Festival |
| 2001 | Song of the Turtle Dove | Director | O'Neill Festival |
| 2002 | Out of Sterno | Director | Cherry Lane Theatre |
| 2003 | Syncopation | Director and Choreographer | Marin Theatre Company |
| 2004 | Echoes of the War | Director | Mint Theater |
| 2005 | The Skin Game | Director | Mint Theater |
| 2006 | Blood Drive | Director | O'Neill Festival |
| 2006 | Desperate Measures | Director | New York Musical Theatre Festival |
| 2006 | Soldier's Wife | Director | Mint Theater |
| 2009 | How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying | Director | White Plains Performing Arts Center |
| 2010 | Hershele Ostropolyer | Director | National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene |
| 2013 | The Threepenny Opera | Director and Choreographer | Colgate University |
| 2014 | The Scutley papers | Director | Workshop with Sally Field |
| 2015 | Yidl Mitn Fidl | Director | Yiddishpiel |
| 2016 | From Moses to Mostel | Director | The Town Hall |
| 2016 | God of Vengeance | Director | La MaMa Experimental Theatre Club |
| 2019 | Carnegie Hall's From Shtetl to Stage | Director and co-creator | Stern Auditorium |
Theater acting (partial list)
Film and television acting (partial list)
Music/recordings list
- Pearls of Yiddish Song
- Remember the Children
- Going Home: Gems of Yiddish Song
- Songs in the Key of Yiddish
- Just Add Water with Di Boyess
- Wild Ecstasy ' with Frank London