in addition to her work with shakespeare, kalich's performance in leon kobrin's "the east side ghetto" won enormous critical praise and increased kalich's fanbase outside of the jewish community. this production in combination with her performances in playwright jacob gordin's didactic plays brought unprecedented attention to the yiddish stage. in 1900, she starred as freydenyu in the premiere of gordin's "god, man and the devil", and that prompted gordin to write the role of etty in "the kreutzer sonata" and the title role in his "sappho and phaon" especially for kalich. these productions made it out of the yiddish playhouses, going all the way to broadway, and establishing kalich as a household name.