By Nicole Tull
The long running Broadway show “Fiddler on the Roof” has come to BackAlley Community Theatre in Grand Cane. Opening night was Friday, May 12th. The singing cast of 24 include local seasoned thespians as well as accomplished actors from surrounding parishes plus one fiddler.
By opening night all six scheduled performances were sold out. A seventh was added, a matinee on Sunday May 21st. By the weekend it was sold out. As of today, an eighth performance has been scheduled for Friday, May 26th. And this will be the last one. Tickets are available online only. CLICK HERE to reserve your seat.
The show opens with a fiddler, Genevieve Aranda, playing a tune while perched atop the proverbial roof. The story is set in a small village in Imperial Russia just prior to the Russian Revolutionary Period. While many of the townsfolk are incorporated in the story, it focuses on a poor Jewish dairyman and his five daughters.
Tevye, played by Stephen Parr, is a product of an arranged marriage, so the local matchmaker, Linda Sibley, has been employed to find suitable husbands for the daughters. Traditions are important to Tevye, but they are being challenged by his headstrong girls, a newcomer, and his wife Golde, played by Kim Pepmiller.
The butcher, John Derbonne, vies for the hand of the eldest daughter, Julie Parr, who is in love with the Tailor, Hunter Tuck. The second daughter, JuJu Welborn, is being convinced of the rebel student’s ideas, played by Ian Hall. The third daughter, MacKenzie Frasier, finds the Gentile boy, Devon Weileder, interesting. The rabbi, Dawson Weileder, is challenged with being a peacemaker amongst the nosy neighbors and uprising revolution.
As relationships forge and tensions mount with the Tzar’s oppression, decisions must be made. The Jewish families choose where they will seek asylum. As the fiddler reappears, Tevye’s remaining household pack up and depart for America.
