Sigmund Mogulesko ^People

He was astar in Abraham Goldfaden's first Bucuresti-based theatertroupe - and theplaywright wrote the title role of Shmendrik for him. Moguleskosoon founded his own troupe and dominated Yiddish theatre in Romania for a decade. After immigra- ting to the United States, he eventually founded the Rumanian Opera House on NewYork City's Lower East Side, one of the great venues of Yiddish theater. The Jewish Encyclopedia described him in 1904 as the best comedian on the Yiddish stage... He is known also as a leading composer of music for the Yiddish stage.Mogulesko also played various other comic, musical roles for Goldfaden, including the granddaughter in Die Bubbe min Einikl (Grandmother and Granddaughter), and the lead in The Intrigue, or Dvoise Intrigued. In his first non- comic role, a play by August von Kotzebue, he so upstaged thestar, Israel Grodner, that Grodner quit to start his own company. Grodner soon hired Mogulesko away from Goldfaden, and eventually Mogulesko would inherit Grodner's troupe. Grodner star- ted another. In 1886, Mogulesko moved to New York, where hepromptly became one of the first Yiddish theater stars in the New World.He later founded the Rumanian Opera House on Manhattan's Lower East Side. In June 1906, Mogulesko made a successful return tour to Romania, reviving Yiddish theater there after a decade of doldrums.