Founded in 1915 or 1916 during World War I, the troupe began with the deserted Vilna State Theatre as their base, toured Kovno, Białystok and Grodno, and soon moved to Warsaw. Their repertoire epitomized the second golden age of Yiddish theater, with works by S. Ansky, Sholem Aleichem and Sholem Asch, as well as Molière, Maxim Gorky, Henrik Ibsen, plus some Jewish-themed plays by non-Jews, notably Karl Gutzkow's "Uriel Acosta". Their uniform Lithuanian Yiddish stood in contrast to the mix of dialects often heard in Yiddish theater at the time.