Nahma Sandrow

Nahma Sandrow is an American scholar of theater and cultural history,^[1] and author of the books Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater; God, Man, and Devil: Yiddish Plays in Translation; and Surrealism: Theater, Arts, Ideas.^[2] She is also the author of Kuni-Leml and Vagabond Stars, prize-winning Off-Broadway musicals based on Yiddish theatre material.^[2] She is Professor Emerita at Bronx Community College of the City University of New York,^[2] and has lectured at Oxford University, Harvard University, the Smithsonian Institution, and elsewhere.

Joseph Papp, writing in the New York Times Book Review, observed about Vagabond Stars: "what makes Sandrow's work distinctive is the unusual blend of impeccable scholarship and hilarious backstage anecdote."^[3]

In 1984 Samuel Freedman, of the New York Times, described the Off-Broadway success of Kuni-Leml, based on Abraham Goldfaden's Yiddish play The Two Kuni-Lemls, of 1880, as "largely attributable to Nahma Sandrow", noting that her work in researching, translating, and adapting the play had yielded a production with contemporary resonance.^[1]

Selected works

Books

• Surrealism: Theater, Arts, Ideas
• Vagabond Stars: A World History of Yiddish Theater. New York: Harper & Row, 1977; reprint: Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 1996. ISBN 9780815603290
• God, Man, and Devil: Yiddish Plays in Translation

Drama

• Vagabond Stars
• Kuni-Leml