The lovely Miriam Kressyn immigrated with her entire family to America from Poland in 1923 and settled in Boston, Massachusetts. As a student, Miriam not only attended summer school and high school, but she also sang in choral classes and attended singing classes given by her teacher. She then won a contest between the best student-singers in the New England Conservatory in Boston, and she received a scholarship of five thousand dollars to travel abroad to study music.
While the Yiddish actors Julius and Anna Nathanson were appearing in Boston in Louie Freiman’s play, “The Golden Bride,” they heard Miriam sing, quite by accident.
Julius Nathanson then invited her to join the chorus in his theatre, where she sang a solo in the play, “The Golden Soldier.” She then stayed on as a member of the chorus.
In forthcoming guest roles, Miriam played a nurse with the actor Max Gabel in the play "The Bridal Gown,” and afterwards played a young boy in “The Bandit” with Ludwig Satz.
She had a walk-on in a children’s presentation of the famous play ”Shulamis,” but she didn’t yet consider the theatre to be her career since she was determined to become a lawyer and was preparing to study at Northeastern University.
In the evenings she continued to sing in the chorus for one season, playing incidental roles.
She was brought more deeply into the Yiddish theatre by the actor Hymie Jacobson, the brother of Yiddish actors Henrietta and Irving Jacobson.
Miriam soon appeared in a more prominent role in Joseph Rumshinsky’s production of the Yiddish play, “Get Married.” She then went on the road, appearing with Aaron Lebedeff and Hymie Jacobson in the Lawndale Theatre in Chicago, having equal billing with them.
During the 1930-31 season Miriam played in Philadelphia’s “Arch Street Theatre” with Hymie Jacobson, and in early 1931 she joined the Hebrew Actor’s Union and traveled as guest performer to Boston. In the summer of that year, she was a guest performer in Argentina with Hymie Jacobson, whom she married in 1933. She traveled with Hymie as a guest performer throughout Europe, to such countries as Belgium, England, France, Lithuania, Latvia and Poland.
While Miriam was in Warsaw, Poland, she divided her time between appearing on stage in the play, “Esther,” and starring in the Yiddish film "The Jester."
In December of 1933 Miriam played with Maurice Schwartz's Yiddish Art Theatre. but at various times she continued to travel abroad to play on the Yiddish stage, in such productions as Sholem Aleichem's play, “If I Were Rothschild.”
Eventually Miriam and Hymie divorced, and Miriam continued to play Yiddish theatre in America.
In 1943 Miriam married her fellow Yiddish actor Seymour Rechtzeit and appeared with him in various Yiddish theatres in New York City, and she also appeared as an acting partner with such Yiddish theatre greats as Menasha Skulnik, Michael Michalesco, Irving Jacobson, among others.
Miriam also appeared on the radio, on a program named the “Forward Hour,” starring in well-known plays that were performed on the radio.
For many years she also had her own programs, where she was both a singer and commentator on radio station WEVD, where she was in charge of writing her own book reviews, holding conversations with famous personalities and guests, and commenting on different social issues.
Miriam also had an original radio program, “Meet up with Miriam Kressyn,” where she discussed a variety of worldwide commercial undertakings.
Miriam also appeared on Yiddish-English television over a period of four years, together with her husband Seymour Rechtzeit.
Miriam Kressyn had a beautiful voice and performed well in musicals, whose music was written by some of the greatest composers for the Yiddish theatre, such as Joseph Rumshinsky, Alexander Olshanetsky, Abe Ellstein and Sholom Secunda, all of whom she was close friends with.
For both Miriam and Seymour, they made it their mission to capture the history of the Yiddish theatre and educate their audience about the influence it had on the American theatre and musical scene.
This they often did on their WEVD radio show.
