Abraham Littman
yiddish theater producer in Detroit
Abraham Littman (אברהם ליטמאן) (December 11, 1880 – August 10, 1962), born in Borisov (Barysaw), in the Russian Empire, was a Yiddish-language theatrical producer, director, and impresario active in the United States. He was best known as the owner and operator of Littman's People's Theater in Detroit, Michigan, which operated from 1927 to 1944 in the city's predominantly Jewish 12th Street neighborhood.
Early life
Born in Minsk Guberniya of the Russian Empire in 1880, Littman immigrated to the United States with his sister at the age of fifteen in 1895. He began working in textile industry sweatshops, but found himself attracted to the thriving Yiddish theatre scene on New York's Lower East Side. In 1905 he married Yetta Silberman.
Career
Touring companies and time in Canada
Littman began his Yiddish theater career as an actor but quickly found that his poor eyesight did not permit him to continue in that position. Until 1923, he served as a director and manager of various touring companies at theaters around the Great Lakes region, including Toronto's Yiddish-language National Theater as well as in Buffalo, Pittsburgh, and Rochester.
The Yiddish Playhouse
In 1924, Littman and his business partner Misha Fishzon purchased a small theater on Hastings Street in Detroit which had up until that point been called the Circle Theater. Though the theater had hosted touring companies operated by managers such as Leon Krim, no Yiddish-language theatrical troupe had yet made Detroit their permanent home. Littman and Fishzon renamed it to the Yiddish Playhouse and began theatrical productions for the 1924–25 season to great acclaim with a troupe recruited from the Hebrew Actors' Union.
“Abraham Littman” enters the record as yiddish theater producer in Detroit. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Abraham, Littman and yiddish can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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