Herman, David
HERMAN, DAVID
HERMAN, DAVID (Nathan-David; 1876–1937), Yiddish theater producer. Born in Warsaw, Herman had a traditional education, studied dramaturgy in Warsaw, wrote initially in Polish and Hebrew, but turned to Yiddish when he joined the *Bund. He organized a dramatic group in Warsaw in 1903 that produced plays by I.L. *Peretz, *Sholem Aleichem, and Sholem *Asch. In 1908 he organized another group in Vienna that staged plays by David *Pinski, Asch, and Peretz in German. On his return to Poland, where the Russian ban on Yiddish theater had been lifted, Herman worked with the Peretz *Hirschbein troupe and organized with Peretz and A. *Mukdoni a Yiddish drama school in Warsaw. He was also director of the *Vilna Troupe, for which he staged the first production of *An-Ski's "Der Dibuk" (1920), which proved an international success. In 1931 he immigrated to the U.S.
add. bibliography:
Z. Zylbercweig, Leksikon fun Yidishn Teater, 1 (1931), 634–6.
[Joseph Leftwich /
Jerold C. Frakes (2nd ed.)]