Sarah Sylvia Company
A Jewish theatrical company which visited South Africa in 1948 with a season of Yiddish plays at the the Colosseum (with a cast including Max Perlman and Guita Galena), returning with another programme in 1950 (at the His Majesty's Theatre). . The same company did the first production of Death of a Salesman in the country in 1951, performing at the new Reps Theatre in Johannesburg, with Israeli actor Jacob Ben Ami as "Willy Loman" and local actor Leon Gluckman as "Biff". The play was co-directed by Ben Ami and Gluckman. Sarah Sylvia herself also made various appearances as actress in South Africa over the years, including The Same Sky (1952, with Leon Gluckman), The World of Sholom Aleichem (in 1957 with David Kossoff and Joyce Grant, directed by Cecil Williams), A Majority of One (in 1960 with Frank Wise, directed by Leonard Schach) and Come Blow Your Horn (in 1962, with Fyvel Zygelbaum and local performers Gordon Mulholland, Clive Parnell and Jane Fenn.) Sarah Sylvia Company: (see Sarah Sylvia) Staged Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, which was the first outside production to be performed at the new Reps Theatre in 1952. Leon Gluckman starred in and co-directed with Jacob Ben-Ami who played Willy Loman.
Sources
Tucker, 1997.
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