Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Culture

Folksbiene Names Dominick Balletta As New Executive Director

The National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, the 104-year-old New York-based company specializing in productions of Yiddish-language drama, announced on October 3 that Dominick Balletta, a veteran of film and theater management, will be the company’s new executive director.

Dominick Balletta

Dominick Balletta Image by Courtesy of Anat Gerstein

Balletta, currently the managing director of the Jacob Burns Film Center in Pleasantville, New York, will returning to Manhattan for his new role. He was the general manager of New York’s Film Forum from 2001 to 2008 and as general manager and producer of Moisés Kaufman’s Tectonic Theater Project from 1997 to 2010.

“I’m extremely thrilled to return to the theater world as Executive Director of the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene,” Balletta said in a statement. “To be at the head of such a leading-edge company, using Yiddish theater and culture to bring to the forefront the human issues facing our contemporary society, is both inspiring and humbling.”

Balletta, who succeeds former Executive Director Chris Massimine, joins the Folksbiene in the middle of a season emphasizing the theme of spiritual resistance. That theme was developed as a companion to the exhibit “Auschwitz: Not long ago. Not far away.” at the Museum of Jewish Heritage, long the Folksbiene’s home

In recent years, the Folksbiene has received renewed attention for its production of “Fiddler on the Roof” in Yiddish, which received a 2019 Drama Desk Award and Outer Critics Circle Award for Best Musical Revival, and continues to run off-Broadway.

Balletta will begin his work with the Folksbiene on November 1, in time for its new restoration of Avrom Goldfaden’s “Di Kishefmakherin (The Sorceress),” which begins previews December 1.

PJ Grisar is the Forward’s culture fellow. He can be reached at [email protected]

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.