THE VFA PIONEER HISTORIES PROJECT

Leah Napolin

April 27, 1935 – May 13, 2018

“This dark little gender-bending tale had an impact on many people who identified, as I did, with the heroine’s struggle to reinvent herself, to redefine herself. Part of the power the second wave women’s movement had was that it gave women permission to do this, to examine the conditions of their lives and redefine who they are and what they wanted to do.” –  Leah Napolin about the story of Yentl.

Playwright. Made her Broadway playwriting debut in 1975 with Yentl. Worked for an anthropological research foundation, taught music at a private school in Venezuela and Comparative Literature at The Ohio State University, founded a program in creative writing for the inmates of the Ohio Reformatory for Women. Associate Editor at Choice Magazine Listening, an audio anthology of articles, poems and short stories for visually-impaired subscribers.

Photo 1. Leah Napolin. Photo 2. Leah supervising auction of Bella Abzug’s hat during the Veteran Feminists of America, Kate Millett ‘Festschrift’ event, 2012.