In 2018, a revival of "Forgotten Divas of the Yiddish Stage" at the Museum of Jewish Heritage featured a single photograph of Pepi Litman: dark eyes, a sharp jaw, a tilted derby hat, and a smile that says, "You thought you knew me. You never even saw me coming."
Odessa in the 1880s was a unique city: a port that blended Russian, Greek, Italian, and Jewish influences. It was here that Litman first saw a traveling Broder Singer troupe. Inspired by the cross-dressing traditions of Purim shpiels (Jewish carnival plays where men played women and vice versa), she realized that a woman in trousers could command more power, more laughs, and more pathos than a woman in a corset. Pepi Litman was not a drag king in the modern sense. She was a prima donna of parody . Her signature act involved a lightning-fast transformation: one moment she was a sobbing mother, the next she would slap on a bowler hat, puff a cigarette, and swagger across the stage as a slick, cynical "dandy" or a naive yeshiva boy. In 2018, a revival of "Forgotten Divas of
Dateline: The Yiddish Theaters of Eastern Europe & New York, c. 1900–1930 Inspired by the cross-dressing traditions of Purim shpiels
One legendary anecdote from the in Chicago (1912): Litman was playing a handsome Cossack captain wooing a Jewish maiden. When she knelt and kissed the maiden’s hand, a voice from the gallery shouted, "That’s a woman!" Litman broke character, stood up, tipped her cap, and replied in Yiddish: "So? A woman knows better what a woman likes!" The house erupted in applause. The Secret Diary: Identity in the Wings Recent scholarship (notably by Dr. Lillian Faderman) has unearthed fragments of Litman’s correspondence. In a letter to a friend in 1916, she wrote: "On the street, I am Miss Litman. I am tired, my feet hurt, the corset is a prison. But when I button the waistcoat and the boots, I become a king. I have more freedom in a fake mustache than I do in a real skirt." she wrote: "On the street