LESTER THOMAS SHANE ORAL HISTORY

ISAAC MOORE: This is Isaac Moore and today is April 8, 2016. I'm here with Lester Thomas Shane at the Museum of the City of New York in New York and we're going to record an oral history interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Lester, do I have your permission to record?

LESTER THOMAS SHANE: Please.

IM:Thank you. So, today, we'll first be mostly talking about your father, Sam Shane, and his time in the Yiddish theater in Cleveland before moving on to talk about your own interest in theater. To start, can you tell me when and where he was born?

LTS:Dad was born 1919 in Cincinnati, Ohio. Grew up there and he moved around. Lived in Cincinnati, lived in Chicago. And then, after the war, he had an uncle 1:00in Cleveland who suggested that -- I mean, that's how he came to Cleveland, Ohio.

IM:Do you have any memories of your grandparents?

LTS:Not on Dad's side. My paternal grandmother died when I was six months old and my paternal grandfather died when my father was a kid, so -- although this is grandpa's ring. This is Leo Shane's ring, Dad's dad's ring, so --

IM:Do you know how they came to live in Cleveland?

LTS:Well, as I say, my dad came because he had an uncle in the furniture business and that was where my father was going to make his living. That's what he ended up doing, having a retail furniture store. And so, his uncle, Abe, had a Gordon Furniture, and Dad went to work for them and then ended up opening his 2:00own business. I think that's how it all played out.

IM:Do you have any famous or infamous family stories to share?

LTS:Oh, I mean, obviously one's whole family is filled with -- but infamous family stories about my dad -- not really. I mean, they're -- the -- I suppose if I started to think more as we went on, things might pop up. But just pulling something out of the air, not -- I can talk about him and my relationship with him. And certainly, going to the theater with him and watching him in plays was a huge part of our relationship. I mean, he didn't take us to ballgames or things like that, but he took us to the symphony and the art museum and to the theater.

IM:Can you tell me when you first started going to the theater?

LTS:Well, I was surprised, in looking at his scrapbook, that one of the first plays I saw and actively remember was "The Dybbuk" -- in English, but "The 3:00Dybbuk." And I can absolutely remember it and quote from it. And it turns out, looking at the date on the program, I was two. Was two years old, and it was seeing that play that inspired me to want to be in the theater. I mean, I -- not only am I able to visualize it and quote it, but I was waiting for Dad backstage. And after the show -- and I was between the costume racks. And it's all this shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] wear, and so they're in black wool and, after a show, it's all kind of dank and everything. And now that I know I was two, I was really little. So, I remember being in this dark tunnel. And out on the stage was the ghost light, the lamp 4:00that has -- little cage over it. And, the way it was, at the end of the tunnel, there was this light in the cage. And I could see the little dust motes. You know how you see them dancing in the light? I get goosebumps still. And I just knew with the entirety of my being that this is where I was going to spend the rest of my life, in the place where dust danced in the light.

IM:Oh, that's impressive. So, before we move --

LTS:Not bad for two, huh? (laughs)

IM:Before we move on to talking about your father's --

LTS:Yeah.

IM:-- theater involvement, I just want to ask you about him.

LTS:Sure.

IM:So, can you describe your father for me? What did he look like?

LTS:What did he look like? He looked like Sam Shane, right? He was a middle-class, successful businessman. Probably five-foot-ten. Taller than me. 5:00Had very good carriage. He had a very rich speaking voice. Good singing voice. Warm smile. He was also very opinionated and authoritarian about his ideas of right and wrong and good and bad and how things should be done.

IM:Can you tell me more about that?

LTS:Well, for example, in matters of art, really, anything past the Impressionists had no interest for him, and he thought it was just -- "What's that?" And similarly, with classical music, anything that was post-romantic -- Tchaikovsky was his favorite composer. He listened to a lot of that. He listened 6:00to a lot of cantorial music. And his opinions were very, very clear and strong to him and it was not a matter of arguing, right? And that was -- he was right and you were wrong and that was sort of the end of it. As time went on and as we both aged, we got a little more conversant about stuff. And also, I think, his taste did change over the years.

IM:So, I'm curious about his family. Do you know much about -- did he have siblings?

LTS:He had a sister, an older sister. And because his father had died and sort of abandoned them -- that that's why he and his sister were kind of sent off to 7:00different aunts and uncles, 'cause his mother couldn't afford to raise two children as a single mom. So, they -- for a while, they all lived in a tenement in Chicago. And then, I'm not -- then he moved back to Cincinnati and his mother remarried and they were able to live together again in -- actually, I think, at that point, they were in Covington, Kentucky, just over the bridge. But he claimed residency in Cincinnati because they had a really good public school there that he wanted to go to, Walnut Hills High School. And so, he claimed that he still lived with that aunt and uncle in Cincinnati and went -- walked over the -- you know those old stories: "I walked over the bridge every day, you have 8:00no idea!" He walked to school every day and had a really superior education to what he would have had in Kentucky. That's his only sibling. I'm still in touch with my first cousin on that side, Esther's daughter, Marilyn, who lives in Florida. Most of that family is pretty much gone at this point or lost to me. There are some cousins and so forth, but -- yeah, Marilyn's the only one I'm still actively in touch with. A couple of other cousins, I guess, as I think about it.

IM:Great, thank you. So, now I'd like to move on to discuss your father's time on the Yiddish stage. Do you know when he first became involved in Yiddish theater?

LTS:Yeah, I think it was roughly around the time that I was born. My mom tells me -- or told me -- that he was given to bouts of depression and that they were 9:00trying to figure out what to do. And one of the things that came up as a possibility was to get involved with the theater at the JCC in Cleveland. And the JCC at that point had its own well-established drama department that did plays -- Jewish plays, Jewish-themed plays. Mostly in English, but periodically in Yiddish. And he took to it right away. He just -- and stayed with it through his whole life. He was actively involved -- they did a mixture of things. Plays in Yiddish. They did -- they would also do Yiddish translations of classics. I know he was -- he played Judge Brack in a Yiddish translation of "Hedda Gabler." 10:00And there was a core group of people, and that was sort of my entre into it, as I started working at the JCC, as well.

IM:Where there any other organizations involved in the Yiddish theater scene in Cleveland?

LTS:I think the Workmen's Circle had some small part of Yiddish theater there, but not as much -- the JCC, under the guidance of Mark Feder, was really the place that had sort of the cultural lock-up on plays of Jewish interest and Yiddish plays. And, they had their own little theater space on Lee Road, and then later, when the JCC was built and moved to Cleveland Heights, it included the Mandel Theatre in the newer building, and then that was torn down. And now, I don't think the JCC has a theater space in it in Cleveland. I mean, there 11:00still lives a Jewish theater in Cleveland, but not hrough the JCC.

IM:For someone who isn't familiar with Cleveland, can you tell us more about the landscape of the Yiddish theater scene?

LTS:Sure. Cleveland was one of those industrial Midwest cities that had initially a downtown and then there were -- was very ethnically segregated. So, there'd be a Polish neighborhood and a Hungarian neighborhood and a -- right? And the Jewish neighborhood was on the east side. And then, by the time I was born, they'd moved out to the east side suburbs. So, Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights and all of those places. Very vibrant Jewish community, per se, right? I mean, there were lots of shuls, and the -- I grew up in Beachwood, 12:00which was the next couple of suburbs out. And my high school was almost completely Jewish. Small, secular high school, but almost completely Jewish. Jewish theater scene really did congregate around this -- the Silvers, Reuben and Dorothy Silver were -- Reuben and Dorothy Silver founded the Karamu Playhouse, which was one of the first theaters dedicated to a sort of interracial theater and breaking through that barrier. And Dorothy, who's still alive in Cleveland and is the -- sort of the reigning queen of Cleveland theater -- and she's an extraordinary actress. And she and Reuben were wonderful actors. They were like the Lunts of the Jewish theater in Cleveland. And Dorothy had the 13:00sponsors, the -- one of the playwriting awards that's a national award for plays of Jewish interest.

IM:Thank you. What memories do you have of your father performing on the stage?

LTS:Well, obviously, "The Dybbuk" is a big one. It's so fascinating to know that I was only two. See, I can picture myself in the front row, house right, right there watching. He was in "The World of Sholem Aleichem" several times. They kept reviving it. And, at one point, I actually got to be in one of the productions with him when they did the high school -- and I played his son, which was really fun.

IM:What was that like?

LTS:Well, it was interesting, 'cause when I had seen the other kids play his son, I was always jealous that they got cast. And so, when I got to do it, it 14:00was really fun and a nice thing to share, his -- so, he did that, he did some of the stuff in Yiddish, as I say. He was in "Goldfadn's kholem [Goldfadn's dream]" and "Shver tsu zayn a yid [It's hard to be a Jew]." And they did -- in English, they did "Caf Crown," which was a big thing. "If I Were You." They did some experimental stuff, at least experimental on that level. His favorite role was Tevye. Not in "Fiddler," but in the original, "Tevye and His Daughters." Again, the English version, the Arnold Perl translation. And I have to say, he was extraordinary. I mean, it was -- I think of all the Tevyes that I've seen and it's not just because he was my dad, 'cause I was often critical of his work. But, he understood that character in a really profound way. And I remember that 15:00when he took the role, he was concerned about -- could he learn all of the lines? 'Cause it's a big, massive chunk of text to learn. And our summer vacation that year -- it was going to open in the fall. And he got the script before the summer even started and started learning the lines over the whole summer. And we would take -- people would be around the pool, and there would be my dad with his script, learning it.

IM:Do you have any favorite plays that you recall your father performing in? Do you --

LTS:Well, the -- Tevye was wonderful. It was fun to see him with Buloff in those plays because he was so excited about getting to work with an actor of that stature. So, they did "Seidman and Son," and "The Fifth Season." And, I guess 16:00those were the two major plays that he did with Buloff. And interestingly, Luba Buloff's autobiography and the pictures in there -- includes a copy of the program from the JCC in Cleveland.

IM:Can you just briefly tell us who Buloff was?

LTS:Oh, sure, sure. Joe Buloff was an extraordinary actor of the Yiddish stage from the Vilna Troupe. He and his wife were major talents. And he achieved national secular prominence. He played Ali Hakim in the original production of "Oklahoma!" and did the entire run for years. And he was this real major force, 17:00and dad was thrilled to be able to work with an actor of that stature. And I have to say, I saw him do "A Chekhov Sketchbook" -- that he did. It was three Chekhov one-acts, in English, but at the JCC. And I think I saw it five times, because I was just dazzled by the brilliance of this man's acting talent and artistry and skill. And he was the one who translated "Death of a Salesman" and did it sort of illegally, right? He saw the show -- Arthur Miller wouldn't give the rights to anyone, but he saw the show and he and Luba went to Buenos Aires and mounted it. And then, after it got all of these great reviews, he sent them to Arthur Miller and said, "So, now will you give me the rights?" And Miller did and gave it to him retroactively. And it's now the only -- I think it's the only 18:00authoritative -- I'm not sure about the legalities and stuff, but it's the major foreign translation of "Death of a Salesman." Buloff obviously made some adjustments, and there's a lot of scholarly work written about that translation and what does it mean and how it impacts -- Miller's American culture versus his sense of Jewishness -- and there's a lot of stuff written about it.

IM:Great. Can you describe the relationship between Buloff and other actors and your father?

LTS:Well, I know that my father would come home and talk about rehearsals and how exciting it was. And then, Buloff counted the number of laughs. If he was doing a comedy, he knew the number of laughs he was supposed to get in the 19:00course of the evening. And at the end of the show that night, he was either happy that he nailed all of them, or needed to -- he wanted to figure out why he missed that laugh at the end of the second act or something, that he was that meticulous. And when we would come to New York as a family on vacation, the highlight of our trip was to go to lunch at the Russian Tea Room with Buloff. And my father would do this, and it was really exciting, certainly for me as a little kid. Number one, just to go to the Russian Tea Room, but to go and sit there with this man who, in my father's eyes, and therefore, as it was imbued to me, was really a star. And he had been, but I don't think that my peers would have thought of him as a star. But he was of that level. Maybe not the same -- 20:00well, I don't know -- as Maurice Schwartz or Boris Thomashefsky. They had their own theater company, so -- I mean, Schwartz was briefly related to my father. Maurice Schwartz, as you may know, had a rather illustrious romantic career as well as theatrical. And he was very briefly married to one of my father's cousins, Eva Rafalo, and so -- and my father would -- when video became available, he would sit me down and say, "Now, this is Maurice Schwartz. You have to see this." And he showed me Schwartz doing Tevye. And I came to New York to see -- well, I was in New York on a vacation and they were doing "Yoshe Kalb" on Second Avenue with David Opatoshu in the Maurice Schwartz role. I went to see it and at that point I was maybe seventeen, and the only person in the theater 21:00under -- it looked like under a hundred. And so, I really was a curiosity. And at intermission, people came to me, like, Why are you doing -- what are you doing here? And I said, "Well, I wanted to see this because I had seen Schwartz." And they said, You saw Schwartz? And I said, "Well, he was my cousin. For about an hour and a half, but he was my cousin." And they said, You know, you look like him. So --

IM:(laughs) How long was your father involved in the theater?

LTS:Up until the time that he sort of was -- as long as he was able to get around. As he got older, he had some mobility issues. So, probably well into his sixties, maybe even later.

IM:What were the later years of his Yiddish theater involvement like?

LTS:Well, hey stopped doing a lot of the Yiddish theater. And then, he also 22:00just felt that he couldn't learn the lines as easily, so he just sort of went more than participated. And by then, I was -- I worked several shows at Cleveland Public Theatre and at the [Halley?], as well, and -- the Halley, not the Mandel. It was the Mandel JCC, the Halley Theatre. And, of course, he and my mom would come and see that.

IM:Yeah. So far, we've been talking about your father's work in theater. But I'd also like to know more about him and your family lives. Can you just describe what it was like growing up in that environment?

LTS:Yeah. It was a basic suburban Jewish household. We kept a kosher kitchen and I -- it was a kosher house and my mother's grand-- my mother's parents, they didn't live with us, but they were over every day. The kind of routine was that 23:00my mother picked up my grandmother, and then they did the shopping, and would come and start cooking and cleaning. And then, my grandfather would come. He was a tailor and he would come after work and my grandmother would serve him dinner at our house. And then, he and my grandmother would pack up and go back to their place. And then, my father would come home from work and my mother would serve him dinner. On Friday nights, we had dinner as a family and did the Shabbos candles and all of that. And if we couldn't work it out, either my grandfather or my brother or I all took over and did the Shabbos kind of stuff. And, we often went to Friday night services together. My father's store was open on Saturdays, so we didn't do Saturday services. But it was a real kind of suburban Jewish household. And the Yiddishkayt of the household was very important. It 24:00was very much part of our household culture -- you know, pictures of rabbis on the wall and, as I say, my father listened to cantorial music and, yeah, lots of books of Jewish interest in the library. And was -- being Jewish was absolutely central to the household dynamic.

IM:What languages were spoken in your home?

LTS:My mother's side of the family was all Hungarian, so those grandparents that I grew up with spoke Hungarian and didn't speak Yiddish, because Hungarians, of course, didn't, for the most part, speak Yiddish. My grandfather could speak a little bit of Yiddish 'cause he had been in the Austria-Hungarian mounted artillery and was very proud of his military past. So, it was very interesting, 'cause my father had nobody, really, to speak Yiddish to, and he didn't speak 25:00Yiddish to us as a family. And my grandparents, who spoke Hungarian to my mother, didn't teach us a lot of it because, like with many, right, it was the language you used when you didn't want the kids to know. But, of course, growing up, you hear that and you begin to learn it like you learn any other language.

IM:Yeah. So, can you tell me briefly about your mother?

LTS:Mom -- and I say rest in peace with all of these people, obviously. Mom was a wife and mother and she had had her own business. She went to a kind of business preparatory high school and opened her own -- 'cause she'd worked in a trimming store. My grandparents were tailors, right? She'd worked in a trimming 26:00store and then she figured out that from all of those buttons and things that you get in trimming stores, that you could make jewelry. And so, she began her own costume jewelry business. And her store, as -- so to speak, was a counter in my father's store. And she came to that because my father's partner was her first cousin. So, Ecker-Shane Furniture -- Al Ecker was her first cousin. She needed a place to open her business, they had this store. She opened the counter, that's how she met my father. And, she was a caretaker. She looked after the house, she did a lot of volunteer work. But she was very much a Jewish mother, taking care of the children and her parents and my father. And it was 27:00very frustrating for her. She got older and she ended up having vascular dementia. And as her mind was ebbing and she couldn't do for other people anymore, she couldn't do for herself, it was really scary and upsetting and infuriating, and -- yeah.

IM:Thank you. How would you describe the relationship between your parents? Do you know what your mother thought about your father's acting?

LTS:Oh, she adored his acting. She was a really big fan. I think whether she thought he was a really good actor or not, I don't really know. But she loved how happy it made him. And, as far as she was concerned -- I remember her 28:00telling me, she thought that the theater really saved him from a really deep depression. And so, if it hadn't been for the theater, who knows where he would have gone, in her mind. And so, she always encouraged him, "Sam, do another play. Do another play," and supported him through all of that.

IM:So, you grew up in Cleveland in the 1950s. Can you tell me briefly about the Jewish community there?

LTS:Well, certainly the east side suburbs of Beachwood and Cleveland Heights and Shaker Heights, University Heights, were all these sort of Jewish enclaves that were the outgrowth -- our parents lived in Glenville and areas of Cleveland proper that then moved to the suburbs. And so, it was just the next generation's 29:00Jewish enclave. Everybody I know went to Hebrew -- that I grew up with went to Hebrew school and had bar mitvzahs and bat mitzvahs and were members of BBG or any of those kind of organizations. And everybody just -- it was just part of that world.

IM:Can you describe the neighborhood you grew up in? What did it look like?

LTS:Yeah. It was single homes, all fairly new construction -- although, on the end of -- further down our street were a couple of old farmhouses from before Beachwood became an actual suburb, when it was just out there. Single-family houses, just like -- it wasn't small-town-ish in the sense that there was a downtown and all of those things. It was real residential suburbs. Enough room 30:00in the backyard to have a little garden, and the people across the street had a big vegetable garden. And my mom liked flowers and she always had fresh -- would cut fresh flowers from the garden in the house, 'cause she always -- she said that if she were really, really rich, she would have fresh flowers delivered, but instead -- and she took flower-arranging classes. She was really -- she was obviously -- had some artistic sensibility. So, she took ikebana classes and learned how to arrange flowers.

IM:Who were the people -- who were your friends growing up?

LTS:Well, I was always involved in the theater. So, my friends -- in fact, I still am friends, in New York, with people that I did theater with as a kid. My friend Lenore Rosenberg works in the artistic department of the Metropolitan Opera. And my friend David Kaufman just wrote a biography of Mary Martin. He's a 31:00famous critic and author. And we were in "You Can't Take It with You" at Beachwood High School. And so, a lot of friends from -- both from the synagogue and from -- mostly from theater.

IM:Yeah, yeah. Can you describe the atmosphere of the home you grew up in?

LTS:The atmosphere of the home. We were three boys and -- with very different sensibilities. My older brother was very social and very popular and engaged in all of sort of the high school activities. And I was a little more scholarly and theatrical. Was very lucky I did well in school. And so, they -- by the time I was in high school, I was able to also go to college part-time, Case Western 32:00Reserve, and just do plays and, yeah, really be involved in that. And my parents were very clear that I could only continue to do theater as long as my grades didn't drop. So, that was the rule. And then, I had a younger brother who was very sports-minded and -- league and all of that stuff. So, three very different sons.

IM:Do you recall which publications, just newspapers or magazines your family subscribed to?

LTS:Well, of course, the Cleveland "Plain Dealer." We got the newspaper every day. We would get "The New York Times" through school. That was just part of our civics class. And, I don't remember whether we subscribed, but I know that we -- my mom loved doing crossword -- both my parents, but my mom in particular liked crossword puzzles. And so, I think we did the "Sunday Times" crossword puzzle together. We played Scrabble -- it was the family game. And other -- let's see, 33:00certainly there was -- the Hadassah bulletin and all of the Jewish organization bulletins that came. My dad loved having lots of magazines, books and magazines around. There was always reading material.

IM:And aside from Jewish theater, were there other aspects of Jewish culture that were important to you as a child growing up?

LTS:I liked religious tradition. I had -- very mixed relationship with Hebrew school. When I had teachers that I didn't like, I would fight tooth and nail not to go. And when I had teachers that I liked, I continued. And I continued on through Hebrew high school. And I still keep a kosher kitchen. There was something about Yiddishkayt and Jewishness -- maybe because of the theater or maybe because of my grandparents, or maybe just because of who I am, I don't 34:00know -- that I always felt there was something -- sort of like a gift. And like with most gifts, you don't have to always like the gift. But somehow, it's a gift that you should honor and treasure. And so, I've always felt like I needed to maintain this tradition. And I've had ongoing relationships. It's an always-evolving sensibility of my connection -- but that sense of "is it good for the Jews or bad for the Jews" that's so -- the old jokes about it. I get that, and I -- it certainly informs a lot of my own decisions about things, that there are boundaries, that when something's bad for the Jews, it's just bad. And it was like growing up, I didn't know -- used to think that Wonder Bread wasn't kosher, because when we would go to the grocery store as a little kid, my mother 35:00would just say of non-kosher food -- like if there was a ham, she would say, "Jewish people don't eat that." So, when I looked at Wonder Bread and she said, "Jewish people don't eat that," I didn't know it was because Jewish people don't eat Wonder Bread. It was like, Oh, maybe it's not kosher.

IM:(laughs) So, can you tell me briefly about your education, both in terms of general education, high school, college, and Jewish life?

LTS:Sure. I went to a secular high school, Beachwood High School, Beachwood Elementary School, all of those things were just regular, that -- then I went to Carnegie Mellon to study theater. And, came to New York City and continued to study with independent teachers: Joanna Merlin and the Luigi Dance Studio and [Rose Allen Singing?] and on and on and on. I was very fortunate that my teachers at Carnegie Mellon were really prestigious and good at teaching me what 36:00I learned. Jewish stuff -- as I say, I went all the way through high school and then came to New York. And I'm a member of the SAJ, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism and continued to take some classes there. And I took some classes at BJ, and continued to study Judaica as well as theater.

IM:Can you reflect on what lead you to study theater in the university?

LTS:Well, I knew I was going to -- this was my career. I'd been doing play-- I was in my first play when I was five. Cleveland had a children's theater, the Heights Youth Theater. Jerry Leonard had this wonderful theater company for kids. And it was at an elementary -- an elementary or junior high? I guess it was an elementary school auditorium during the winter months and in the summer. There was this wonderful amphitheater where they would do big musicals and bring 37:00in teen stars like Tony Dow from "Leave it to Beaver" and these kinds of -- to star in the big musicals. And so, I just started doing plays when I was five, and just kept doing them and ended up doing -- like at the JCC, I did a play with Eli Mintz, who was Uncle David on "The Goldbergs." So, again, there was this connection to this Yiddish. But there was no question, this -- I had to go study theater 'cause that's what I was going to do. And at the time, Carnegie Mellon was the most prestigious drama school in the country, or at least one of them.

IM:What was it like to work with Eli Mintz?

LTS:Challenging. I think my perception of him at the time was, although he had been this radio and TV celebrity, that he was jealous of lots of the stars of 38:00the Yiddish theater, including his -- I don't know whether it was his cousin or his brother, Ludwig Satz, was a big star and he -- as I say, I don't know whether that was his cousin or his brother. But he never wanted to trade on that name and he never achieved that kind of artistic celebrity status. But he was more famous for playing this nebbishy uncle on -- Uncle David on "The Goldbergs." And, when we would rehearse, he -- 'cause it was a two-hander. It was just him and me, and we would rehearse for a long time at his hotel. And he would say, "For ten thousand dollars, you couldn't get an education like I'm giving you." And he would wag his finger a lot at me. And one night, he went up on his lines. And I guess I was twelve at the time and I pulled the show back 39:00and got it all back in place. And he stormed into my dressing room afterwards and he said, "And you call yourself an actor?" I was like, "What?" He turned it all around, that I had screwed up. And I just thought, What can you do? What can you do? My friends came to see the show and they were all hovering around at the stage door and asking me for my autograph and all of that, just as fun, and he walked out the door and they didn't say anything to him. And he walked over and said, "So, did you come to see him or me?" And my friends said, Frankly, Mr. Mintz, him. (laughter) Another thing that did not endear him. But I did learn a lot. I learned an extraordinary amount about timing from him. He really knew how 40:00to shape a line and make it land. And we would rehearse a line over and over and over until I got it, exactly timed. Well, I can remember a rehearsal where I had the line, "I guess he made a mistake. Guess he made a mistake. Everybody makes mistakes." And I had to do this cross and touch the back of the chair and turn and look at him. And we must have spent over an hour on that line, just to get it to his satisfaction. That's real discipline and real artistry from his -- so, yeah, I learned -- he's right, ten thousand dollars.

IM:Who else did you work with when you were young?

LTS:I didn't -- just local people. I mean, that was the -- well, I take that back. I did work with Morris Carnovsky -- came to Cleveland to do "Merchant of Venice" and they had me -- by this point, I had just finished my freshman year 41:00at school and studied speech with David Skinner. So, they brought me in to help get the cast ready for Carnovsky to come. I didn't get to work with Buloff, but I did get to meet him. But I guess those were the only stars, so to speak.

IM:And you also worked with your father, you mentioned.

LTS:Yeah, yeah. We did that one -- we also would do -- at temple, they had a father-son banquet every year and -- when I was really little. And Dad and I would do -- he liked -- Dad loved Al Jolson. So, we had a thing where he would -- I would sit on his lap and he would sing "Sonny Boy," the Al Jolson song. And, every time the line "Sonny Boy" came, that's what I would do. So, you'd -- "Climb upon my knee, Sonny Boy. Though you're only three, Sonny Boy. There's no way of knowing, there's no way of showing what you mean to me." And I'd go, 42:00"Sonny Boy!" Right? And it was a wonderful father-son banquet thing. I'm suddenly very moved by that.

IM:Thank you for sharing that. (laughter) So far, we've been talking about your father and the early part of your life. So, I want to move forward a bit. So, you left Cleveland for New York City, where you've established a career in writing, creating, and directing plays. Can you give me a brief snapshot of that journey and your current professional life in New York?

LTS:Sure. So, I came to New York and I worked as an actor, writer, director, teacher, all of those things. I've done a lot of work in classical theater. I was the artistic director of the Shakespeare Theater in Jacksonville, Florida. I was the voice and movement master of the Alabama Shakespeare Festival when I was playing leading roles there. I was doing "Tartuffe" and those kinds of plays. 43:00And my directing career has taken me to do everything from Shakespeare to -- I directed a production of "Hedwig" at Cleveland Public Theatre. And so, I've done a lot of new plays. Last year, I did a play at the Fresh Fruit Festival. Dennis Bush is an incredible playwright that I've had an ongoing relationship with. And his play, "Mary Todd," won the best play of the Fresh Fruit Festival. It was a one-person show. The actor won best actor and I won best director. So, I also have a one-man show that I did, "Mortal Coil," that came out of my experience as a hospice volunteer. So, in this piece, I play thirteen characters: patients, caregivers, and staff, one night on the unit. And, that's played all over the country. And then, a few years ago, it was translated into Norwegian and I went to Oslo to direct that. And in spring of '17, I'm going to be directing 44:00"Winter's Tale" at Pace University. Last year, I directed "Translations" there. Right now, I'm -- I do a lot of dialect coaching, as well. I'm dialect coaching a production of "Cabaret" at the New York Film Academy musical theater program. I was the dialect coach on "The Blacklist." I was the dialect coach on the big production that they just did, the twenty-fifth anniversary production of "Secret Garden," which was just a real rush, to hear those voices this close.

IM:Great, thank you. So, from an early age on, you were exposed to theater, Yiddish theater, Jewish theater. So, how, if at all, has that connection influenced your own sense of identity? Your Jewish identity?

LTS:I always feel like that's the core, that everything stems from that first 45:00exposure to "The Dybbuk," when I knew that that was going to be what I did. It was interesting, I went back to college, 'cause I didn't finish my degree at Carnegie. I went there for three years and, for a bunch of reasons, I left. And in 2013, I went back to school, to Empire State College, to finish my degree, just because I wanted to do that. And, you have to -- because that's part of the SUNY system, you have to take a language. So, I said, "I want to take Yiddish." And I did. And I ended up taking it at the 92nd Street Y. But you had to have a mentor there who would sort of sign off on your having done the program. And the teacher at Empire State asked me why I wanted to do this. And I said, "Well, I know I'm not going to be able to do this with one semester's worth of Yiddish, 46:00but I really want to read 'The Dybbuk' in Yiddish at some point." And I talked about that experience and I said the end of the first act, when the rabbi looks and says, "Into the bride has passed a dybbuk," I thought, I really want to be able to read that in Yiddish. And so, at the end of the term, the professor came and he handed me that passage and said, "Read this." And I did. And he said, "You've now read the line you always wanted to read in Yiddish."

IM:What was it like to study Yiddish at such an early -- or a later stage?

LTS:At such a late age? It's difficult. I mean, learning a language in your sixties is harder than it is at ten or five or whatever. But it was fun, and I -- as I started to learn enough -- I'd already directed a couple of readings in Yiddish for New Yiddish Rep. They did -- I did "Shylock" with them, and I would 47:00just have the English and the Yiddish there because I could read the characters, the Hebrew characters, and I could start to figure it out. But like anything, when you know the world and the material, it just becomes possible.

IM:Thank you. How, if at all, do you see your father's time in the theater influencing your own Jewish identity?

LTS:I think the fact that he took me to see "The Dybbuk" -- certainly, it affected me both at -- my Jewish identity and my theatrical identity. I think of them all as part of the, for lack of a better term, the tapestry of who I am. I can't parse it out into individual pieces, but I'm very much -- I mean, my whole 48:00life has been the theater. More so even than -- when they talk about entertainment and film and television, all that, I'm really rooted in the theater rather than the other media. And certainly, Jewishness has been a big part of that, and Jewish values and --

IM:Yeah. Can you reflect on what you've learned from your father?

LTS:My father was -- little OCD. And, he wore a belt and suspenders and would have to check the door repeatedly. And I've discovered at my age, I'm starting to check the door more often than I wish I did. But I think that -- although I 49:00hope I'm not as rigid as he was about many things -- but I do have a respect for his ability to make decisions about right and wrong and to -- he was kind of famous in town for being honest. He was really a man of his word, and impeccable integrity. And whether that came from his Jewishness, although I think some of it did, that was one of his core values. I think it's a huge part of me. When I was supposed to direct the Yiddish "Death of a Salesman," which didn't work out -- but that was the Buloff translation. And I was really linked -- I mean, I could feel my father, his spirit around me as I was doing the research and 50:00working on the text. And so, it was very accessible to me in the moment.

IM:Great. So, how would you describe your academic interest in Yiddish theater? How do you see Yiddish entering into your work today, your directing, your --

LTS:Well, I mean, I know Mark Feder, this first director from the JCC, gave me those fundamental rules about, learn your lines and don't bump into the furniture, that sort of the ground -- the first rules of acting. And the stuff -- so, academically, I don't know. I don't think that from an academic point of view it has had that much, although the notion of continuing to study -- I mean, my father took classes -- he actually started studying Hebrew in his retirement 51:00years. He wanted to learn conversational Hebrew, and did.

IM:How, if at all, has your relationship to Yiddish, Yiddish culture evolved throughout the course of your life?

LTS:It remains this soft spot, that sort of heymish [familiar] thing that lives, I think, deep inside anyone who was exposed to it at a young age. And my --- the evolving sensibility is my appreciation for it as a mature artist, that I really see now, and I can't wait to see the exhibit, to see the breadth of the artistry. I mean, as I've done more research in it over the years and read the books and so forth -- the fact that Jewish theater was so much a part of the New 52:00York culture, Jewish culture, and that that was -- much in the same way that, in England, Shakespeare and -- right? That's just who they are. And in New York, Jews and theater, it's part of who we are.

IM:How does looking back on your father's time in the theater as an adult differ from your perception of him as a child?

LTS:Hm. I think -- that's a really interesting question. It's hard to not get lost in nostalgia and to look at it through that lens of, Oh, then -- on the 53:00other hand, it was an, Oh, then. And I think when we look back on anything that's from our childhood, there is that patina of nostalgia that is comforting. But I also see -- his commitment to the work was always very serious. He didn't look at it like, "Oh, I just do this as a hobby, so what difference does it make?" And that really was part of the culture of the JCC there, was that that was a community theater that was not, Oh, we do this to have a party. But the real sense of amateur and the -- out of the -- amat, out of love of -- and they took that work very seriously and were really committed to it. And I think I really honor that. I don't know that it's -- that I've romanticized it in any 54:00way, but have even, I think, maybe more respect for it.

IM:How would you describe your relationship to Yiddish today or to Yiddish theater in general?

LTS:I love going to see it. I'd love to continue working in it. It's a kind of small community. It's often dysfunctional. I'm sure you've heard if you -- right? And there's a lot of internecine crap about it. But the work itself, I think, is always interesting. And I hope to continue studying the language so that I can do it better. I don't know how to really make more inroads in it, but that's all -- that's showbiz, right, is always trying to get the next job.

IM:(laughs) Right. So, what is the future of Yiddish theater? What do you think?

LTS:Well, we have the two companies in New York, New Yiddish Rep and the National Jewish Theater, the Folksbiene. They're always at war with each other. I would hope that there's a way of keeping it alive. I know that with young people, it's hard. I don't know that there are that many young people who aren't Hasids who speak Yiddish, although I gather that there's a -- like at Amherst, right, there's a whole new crop of people studying. So, how do we -- I think if we want to continue Yiddish theater, how do we get those people who are 56:00interested in Yiddish to then become interested in Yiddish theater, artistically and as actors? And I don't know, I'm not in the world enough to sit and roundtable that with other people. I'd love to play in that park, but they haven't invited me that often.

IM:(laughs) Thank you. Perhaps we can just reflect on what you see as the future of maybe Yiddish culture in general, sort of --

LTS:Yeah. I think we're at a crossroads now, because even people my age and certainly younger -- that sense of Yiddish culture being defined by Holocaust doesn't play out anymore. So, what does? What's going to replace it? Faye Sholiton, who runs a theater company in Cleveland with plays of Jewish interest, 57:00is always looking for plays that are not Holocaust plays but are plays that look through that Jewish lens, that Jewish prism. And there are other companies, I think, that are doing that. But they're not focused on Yiddish. They're focused on Jewishness, whatever that means. I'm going to be in a play in the fall, and the name just escaped me. But it's a play of -- has a little bit -- well, it is a sort of post-Holocaust play. So, I think we're -- I mean, you would know more about what does your generation look at in terms of -- does Holocaust stuff interest you at all anymore? I don't know. Does it feel played out? Does it feel like, oh -- I mean, it's interesting, "Fiddler" is a huge hit again. And when they were going to revive it, my sense is, Really? Do we need "Fiddler" again 58:00now? And yet, everyone says it's wonderful and they're delighted to go. I don't know. I mean, in the opera, you're never going to get tired of "Madame Butterfly" and "Tosca" and "Carmen," right? Those classics will live. It appears that "Fiddler" is always going to be at that kind of level of a play that just gets revived over and over again and one doesn't tire of it, that it'll be true for successive generations. But we ought to come up with some more stuff, I think. What that will be -- I mean, there's your classic Jewish shrug.

IM:(laughs) So, one last question --

LTS:Okay.

IM:-- then we'll go towards the end. But as a director, what do you think of Yiddish language works being performed in English translation?

LTS:Well, "The Dybbuk" plays, and I know it's been adapted into other sort of formats. But it's still a great play. I really want to direct it. I really want 59:00to direct this play, because it's got everything. It's a love story, it's a ghost story, it's a play about past and future and spirit and good and -- I mean, it's got everything. So, does it translate into English? Yeah, it does, I -- that's why I say, I could remember, "Into the bride has passed a dybbuk" sixty years later. So, I haven't read many of the translations of the Yiddish classics. I know the ones that the JCC did. Certainly "The Golem" and all of those plays, these are -- they're going to be doing "The Golem" at Lincoln Center Festival. I don't know who's doing it or what the adaptation is, but it's happening. So, I think those plays, those classics still play. I don't know if there are people -- I don't know. Are people currently writing plays in Yiddish? 60:00I don't know. That's an interesting question.

IM:That is an interesting question. So, we're nearing the end of our time, but I'm curious if there's anything else you'd like to add or share with us today?

LTS:God, it's really so moving to be reminiscing about my dad this way, and I'm really grateful for the opportunity to spend time reflecting on him. Growing up, I think we had both a really rich relationship and then, like all fathers and sons, there's a period of a very rocky relationship.

IM:Would you like to share a particular anecdote or story about him?

LTS:We would just get frustrated with each other on all kinds of -- again, whether it was art or whatever, we would just butt heads, and neither one of us 61:00would give in. And at the end of his life, he was in a nursing home. And it was a Yom Kippur and I would take him -- they had services in the nursing home and I would usually take him down and we'd daven together. And this one Yom Kippur, he just said, "I'm too tired." And I knew this was -- if he's not going to Yom Kippur services, this is -- we're coming to the end of his life. And so, when I went up after services and we talked, we were able to have a real reconciliation where we talked about all the resentments that went both ways. And it was very, very healing and very, very powerful. Very moving. And we really were clear about the stuff that we -- how we disappointed each other in what stuff that he 62:00wished had been different out of me and that I wished had been different out of him. And then, we both acknowledged that regardless of all of that, we both loved each other and knew that the other loved us, even though we'd had huge arguments. And we were able to come to that conclusion and cry and hug and kiss, and that was sort of the last real conversation that we had. And it was beautifully healing. And I think as a result of that, I never have any of -- that's why when you ask about this stuff, that's all so healed that it's not like stuff I need to talk about, to exorcise anymore. And that's -- I'm really at peace with who he was and how much of him is in me, that I would certainly 63:00not be the man I am, the actor I am, the director I am, the Jew that I am, had it not been for all of the influence and gifts he gave me.

IM:Great. Well, I want to thank you for participating in the Wexler Oral History Project and --

LTS:Thank you.

IM:-- and sharing your stories with us today.

LTS:Thank you very much.

IM:It's been a pleasure.

LTS:Mine.

[END OF INTERVIEW]