Purim Spiel

A Purim spiel is a comic dramatization of the biblical Book of Esther performed as part of the festive observance of the Jewish holiday of Purim, integrating text, theater, music, dance, song, mime and costume; scholars regard it as the origin of Yiddish theatre, with the term in wide use among Ashkenazi Jewish communities by the mid-1500s. By the eighteenth century in Eastern Europe the genre had grown into broad satires with music and dance, often performed outdoors in synagogue courtyards rather than inside the sanctuary itself. Purim spiels remain an annual tradition in synagogues in the United States, France and elsewhere, with congregations typically writing new scripts each year that parody popular songs or musicals and use the ancient story to address contemporary social and political concerns.