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September 22 , 1964

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Things you might not know about Fiddler on the Roof.

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Things you might not know about Fiddler on the Roof.

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http://mentalfloss.com/article/65530/12-things-you-might-not-know-about-fiddler-roof

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fiddler on the roof pictures - Google Search

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Click the link and scroll down to watch the video

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Click the link and scroll down to watch the video

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Video Footage Released From Broadway's Fiddler on the Roof Revival

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The new production, directed by Bartlett Sher, plays the Broadway Theatre.

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Who wrote the song "If I were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof

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Who wrote the song "If I were a Rich Man" from Fiddler on the Roof

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Jerry Bock.

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fiddler on the roof pictures - Google Search

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How many songs are in  Fiddler on the roof

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How many songs are in  Fiddler on the roof

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28

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This is a prayer shawl

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Video from a musical theatre kids doing fiddler on the roof

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Video from a musical theatre kids doing fiddler on the roof

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Merrillville High School Commencement Challenge Video Ramona High School Senior Class Dance

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Roof James Theodos Solo Performance Video Southbury Connecticut Pomperaug High School Riverview Gardens High School

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Great video of Chaffey High School's performance of Fiddler on the Roof

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1. The original production opened on Broadway on September 22, 1964. (Happy anniversary, Tevye and Golde!) 2. Fiddler on the Roof became the first Broadway musical to run 3,000 performances, finally closed with a total of 3,242 performances. The West End production ran 2,030 performances. 3. The H.P.

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A genre of drama in which singing and dancing play an essential part.

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In the song, the main character, Tevye, explains the roles of each social class (fathers, mothers, sons, and daughters) in the village of Anatevka, and how the traditional roles of people like the matchmaker, the beggar, and the rabbi contribute to the village. The song also mentions the constable, the priest, and the other non-Jews with whom they rarely interact. Later in the song, an issue involving an argument between two men about the issue of selling the other person a horse and delivering a mule creates a ruckus in the village. Overall, the song sets up the major theme of the villagers trying to continue their traditions and keep their society running as the world around them changes.

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https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&rlz=1CADEAC_enUS651US653&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8&safe=active&ssui=on#safe=strict&q=what+is+a+fiddle&*

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a play or movie in which singing and dancing play an essential part. Musicals developed from light opera in the early 20th century.

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Fiddler on the Roof is a 1971 American musical comedy-drama film produced and directed by Norman Jewison. It is an adaptation of the 1964 Broadway musical of the same name, with music composed by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and screenplay by Joseph Stein.

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vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) combined in such a way as to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.

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Fiddler on the Roof takes place in Russia!

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Broadway theatre commonly known as Broadway, refers to the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theater District and Lincoln Center along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Along with London's West End theatres, Broadway theatres are widely considered to represent the highest level of commercial theatre in the English-speaking world.

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Joseph Stein

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Fiddler on the Roof Broadway @ Imperial Theatre - Tickets and Discounts | Playbill

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Tevye, a Jewish milkman in early 1900s Russia, sees his three eldest daughters married, each one moving further from traditional ways, and must cope with the growing anti-Jewish sentiment in his country.

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prologue tradition

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Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein

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Fiddler on the Roof is a 1971 American musical comedy-drama film produced and directed by Norman Jewison. It is an adaptation of the 1964 Broadway musical of the same name, with music composed by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and screenplay by Joseph Stein.

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Things you wanted to know about fiddler 

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Things you wanted to know about fiddler 

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Other things other people didn't know

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Wonder of Wonders
By Alisa Solomon
Metropolitan Books, 448 pages, $32

Those searching for razzle-dazzle bar mitzvah entertainment need look no further than the Amazing Bottle Dancers, a group of athletic young men who'll burst into your special event, hoist the guest of honor up onto a chair, perform the suspenseful "bottle dance" from the wedding scene in "Fiddler on the Roof," and then, for a grand finale, lead the whole crowd in a rollicking 45-minute hora.

These enterprising dancers, with their pasted-on peyes and beards, are easy targets for "Fiddler" detractors of all types - from those who lament that whole generations seem to have gleaned everything they know about Jewish religious practice from show tunes like "Sabbath Prayer" and "Tradition," to Yiddishists who view the musical's plot as a bastardization of Sholem Aleichem's Tevye stories.

Theater critic Alisa Solomon can't resist her own subtle dig at the entertainers she describes as "fake Hasidim for hire" in "Wonder of Wonders," her exhaustive new cultural history of the show.

But lambasting "Fiddler"-themed kitsch is otherwise of little interest to Solomon, who wisely avoids assigning credit or blame for the musical's cultural spin-offs to its creators, who no more could have anticipated ceramic Tevye music boxes and Anatevka-shaped mezuza covers than they could have predicted that figures as diverse as Glenn Beck and Occupy Wall Street protestors would one day borrow from the show to advance their agendas.

"Wonder of Wonders" offers a particularly thoughtful analysis of how "Fiddler" - a midcentury showbiz creation - has achieved something like folklore status in the American imagination, and grapples, as any history of this musical must, with fundamental questions about Jewish identity.

Yet Solomon is right to describe her account as first and foremost a "story about theater, the making of it and the meanings that come from the messy and marvelous collaborations that are its essence." If the Amazing Bottle Dancers' routine gets under her skin, it's because she views it as a betrayal not of Sholem Aleichem but of Jerome Robbins, the director and choreographer who sweated and fretted over the original "bottle dance" - and who emerges as the hero of her tale.

The seeds for "Fiddler" were planted years before Robbins was born in 1918. Solomon dutifully devotes the first chapters of "Wonder of Wonders" to a lively and thorough enumeration of early attempts to adapt Sholem Aleichem's works for the American stage, beginning with the moment in 1906 when the author himself arrived in New York with the dream of striking gold in the thriving Yiddish theaters of the Lower East Side.

But Sholem Aleichem would die before finding any real theatrical success, and as late as 1953, when an English-language adaptation of Sholem Aleichem's stories opened off Broadway (featuring, at the height of the Red Scare, a cast made up entirely of blacklisted actors), Eleanor Roosevelt would still find it necessary to exhort readers of her newspaper column, "Don't think because it's about Jews you won't like it."

If you open the book (as I did) already humming the sentimental strains of "Sunrise, Sunset," you might find yourself longing to skip past the intricate backstory to the part where Solomon starts talking about the more immediate origins of the musical.

Enter, then, librettist Joseph Stein, composer Jerry Bock, and lyricist Sheldon Harnick, a trio of Broadway veterans who by 1960 were looking for a follow-up to "Fiorello!," their Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning 1959 hit. Armed with a single copy of an out of print English translation of Sholem Aleichem's Tevye stories, they began to sketch out a musical about characters that, as Stein put it, "just happened to be Jewish."

This is essentially how the three men (and just about everyone else writing for Broadway at the time) viewed themselves; having largely left religious observance and Yiddish behind, they "responded to the identity with the quintessential Jewish gesture: a shrug," Solomon writes. And yet that distance didn't stop them from engaging deeply with the stories' themes and historical implications. One of their proposed names for the work was "Where Poppa Came From."

Once they had a script, they needed a producer (or two). Hal Prince said he'd consider backing the show only if Jerome Robbins, who'd changed the American musical forever with the vernacular movement and operatic tragedy of 1957's "West Side Story," would direct. That might have seemed like a long shot since Robbins repeatedly stated that he "didn't want to be a Jew," and at one point wrote that he learned ballet to escape the "wondrous and monstrous" dance steps he feared he'd find by "dig[ging] down to [his] Jew self."

In 1959, however, Robbins took a trip in search of Rozhanka, the tiny Polish town where his father was born, and where Robbins recalled having spent a single carefree summer on his grandfather's knee, unashamed, for once, of his Jewishness. By the time he thought to find it again, Jewish Rozhanka had long since been destroyed, and Solomon argues that wandering in search of that vanished shtetl is what primed Robbins to lavish such tenderness upon the fictional Anatevka.

Robbins threw himself into the project with his characteristic mania. He scoured shtetl histories and invited the show's costume and set designers to his home for screenings of films like "Laughter through Tears," hoping they'd absorb the sights and sounds of life in the Pale in 1905.

He interviewed his own father about his escape from Rozhanka, and warmed to the memory of his Yiddish-speaking maternal grandmother, whose "Jewish backward ways" he'd previously despised.

For local inspiration, Robbins crashed weddings in Brooklyn's Borough Park, sometimes dragging along cast members disguised in Hasidic dress, to observe celebratory schnapps-fuelled dancing that enthralled him with what he termed its "virile ferocity."

A closeted gay man who'd always felt ashamed of what he perceived as the weakness of Jewish masculinity, Robbins marveled as each "explosive foot thrust to the floor" seemed to him to assert a "strength [he] never knew." In one attempt to bring Orthodox social mores back to the rehearsal hall, Robbins tried enforcing gender segregation during breaks - a policy he managed to enforce only for a few hours before the actors rebelled.

Some of the director's more memorable clashes were with Zero Mostel, the loudmouthed and handsomely compensated star Robbins had come to view as indispensable, but whom he'd warily described in his journal as "crude, vulgar, but healthy and satisfied."

Mostel, in Solomon's analysis, "represented all that Robbins had repressed," and Mostel seemed to know it, lording over Robbins his superior knowledge of Yiddish literature and Jewish customs. It was Mostel who insisted that Tevye would never neglect to kiss the mezuza when passing through the doorway of his home, and Mostel who persuaded Harnick not to cut the verse in which Tevye dreams of a synagogue seat by the Eastern Wall from "If I Were a Rich Man."

Throughout the creative process, the team continued to make important changes to the script well into the show's out of town previews in Detroit. Harnick wrote "Wonder of Wonders" in his hotel room, mining the Gideon Bible in his nightstand for mentions of miracles.

Robbins was still tinkering with it as late as two weeks before "Fiddler" opened on Broadway on Sept. 22, 1964. At last, obsessed by something he'd seen done by a Brooklyn Hasid he'd nicknamed "Mr. Redbeard," he called a dozen male dancers into the studio to learn to bounce, twist and sway in ever more difficult "whips and hooks" - all with bottles balanced atop their heads.

Robbins didn't allow stage illusions, so each night's performance of the flashen-tantz was to carry a real risk of injury from shattered glass. (Today's Amazing Bottle Dancers, to put it delicately, leave a good bit less to chance.) By injecting an element of danger into the dance, Solomon writes, Robbins both countered the chilling post-Holocaust stereotype of "weak, effeminate male Jews" and converted Tzeitel and Motel's wedding into a genuine showstopper.

On opening night, the show's creators exchanged gifts: Stein bought Harnick a mezuza, and Robbins received a shofar and a white silk yarmulke. Clearly, working on "Fiddler" had changed the four men, deepening their Jewish identification, and it had affected Robbins the most. "Making 'Fiddler,'" Solomon writes, "Robbins reclaimed that discarded part of himself and, in so doing, returned it, in a glittering package, to those audience members who also had left it behind."

The gesture was received with breathless enthusiasm by many Jewish spectators of the initial Broadway run, some of whom even wrote in to describe how much Anatevka reminded them of other little Polish and Russian towns they'd known, or else to offer gentle historical "corrections" to details that didn't quite match up to their memories.

In light of these early fan responses, it's ironic that critics of "Fiddler" became similarly obsessed with historical accuracy, panning the show's depiction of "the cutest shtetl we never had," as Irving Howe famously put it. Solomon responds with an argument that's as obvious as it is elegant. "No one looks for documentary realism in the New York City of 'Guys and Dolls' or 'West Side Story,'" she writes.

In fact, the fictional shtetl's resemblance to real places began to seem irrelevant as it traveled the world, in international productions and onscreen in Norman Jewison's 1971 film adaptation. Clearly, it wasn't just Jews who longed for Anatevka: When "Fiddler" arrived in Tokyo, Solomon writes, the producer wondered how Americans could make sense of a story that was "so Japanese."

And one of Solomon's most moving chapters concerns a junior high production of "Fiddler" in Brownsville, Brooklyn, during a teachers' union strike over integration and community control of public schools. This "Fiddler" featured black and Latino preteens in the lead roles at a time when black-Jewish tensions in the neighborhood had reached an all-time high. And yet its cast members echoed one original Broadway chorister's ardent declaration that, while working on the show, they came "to love our village."

"It helped me to embrace all these different people," one Brownsville actor recalled. "Including myself."

One of the first audience members to make it backstage after the first night of "Fiddler" on Broadway in 1964 was Robbins' father, who threw his arms around his son and and wept, asking, "How did you know all that?" Solomon's book is a chronicle of the many ways in which so many of us have asked - and attempted to answer - that same question ever since.
Eileen Reynolds writes frequently about the arts for the Forward.

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Everything You Wanted To Know About 'Fiddler on the Roof' But Didn't Ask

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Wonder of Wonders By Alisa Solomon Metropolitan Books, 448 pages, $32 Those searching for razzle-dazzle bar mitzvah entertainment need look no further than the Amazing Bottle Dancers, a group of athletic young men who'll burst into your special event, hoist the guest of honor up onto a chair, perform the suspenseful "bottle dance" from the wedding scene in "Fiddler on the Roof," and then, for a grand finale, lead the whole crowd in a rollicking 45-minute hora.

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Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

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[TEVYE]

Tradition, tradition! Tradition!

Tradition, tradition! Tradition!

[TEVYE & PAPAS]

Who, day and night, must scramble for a living,

Feed a wife and children, say his daily prayers?

And who has the right, as master of the house,

To have the final word at home?

The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.

The Papa, the Papa! Tradition.

[GOLDE & MAMAS]

Who must know the way to make a proper home,

A quiet home, a kosher home?

Who must raise the family and run the home,

So Papa's free to read the holy book?

The Mama, the Mama! Tradition!

The Mama, the Mama! Tradition!

[SONS]

At three, I started Hebrew school. At ten, I learned a trade.

I hear they've picked a bride for me. I hope she's pretty.

The son, the son! Tradition!

The son, the son! Tradition!

[DAUGHTERS]

And who does Mama teach to mend and tend and fix,

Preparing me to marry whoever Papa picks?

The daughter, the daughter! Tradition!

The daughter, the daughter! Tradition!

[MATCHMAKER]

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match.

Find me a find, catch me a catch.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, look through your book

And make me a perfect match.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, I'll bring the veil.

You bring the groom, slender and pale.

Bring me a ring, for I'm longing to be

The envy of all I see.

For Papa, make him a scholar.

For Mama, make him rich as a king.

For me, well, I wouldn't holler

If her were as handsome as anything.

Matchmaker, matchmaker, make me a match.

Find me a find, catch me a catch.

Night after night, in the dark, I'm alone.

So, find me a match of my own.

[TSEITEL]

Hodel, oh Hodel, have I made a match for you.

He's handsome! He's young! All right, he's 62.

But he's a nice man, a good catch. True? True!

I promise you'll be happy. And even if you're not,

There's more to life than that. Don't ask me what!

Chava! I've found him! Will you be a lucky bride!

He's handsome. He's tall! That is, from side to side.

But he's a nice man, a good catch, Right? Right!

You've heard he has a temper. He'll beat you every night.

But only when he's sober- so you're all right!

Did you think you'd get a prince?

Well I do the best I can.

With no dowry, no money, no family background,

Be glad you got a man!

Matchmaker, matchmaker, you know that I'm

Still very young. Please, take your time.

Up to this minute, I've misunderstood

That I could get stuck for good.

Dear Yenta, see that he's gentle.

Remember, you were also a bride.

It's not that I'm sentimental.

It's just that I'm terrified!

Matchmaker, matchmaker, plan me no plans.

I'm in no rush. maybe I've learned

Playing with matches a girl can get burned.

So bring me no ring, groom me no groom,

Find me no find, catch me no catch.

Unless he's a matchless match!

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http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0067093/synopsis

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The cast and Crew

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Fiddler on the Roof (1971) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.

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what are the songs in fiddler on the roof?

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what are the songs in fiddler on the roof?

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Search the world's information, including webpages, images, videos and more. Google has many special features to help you find exactly what you're looking for.

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Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in or around 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem. The story centers on Tevye, a milkman in the village of Anatevka, who attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon his family's lives. He must cope with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters who wish to marry for love; their choices of husbands are successively less palatable for Tevye. An edict of the Tsar eventually evicts the Jews from their village.

The original Broadway production of the show, which opened in 1964, had the first musical theatre run in history to surpass 3,000 performances. Fiddler held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until surpassed its run. The production was extraordinarily profitable and highly acclaimed. It won nine Tony Awards, including best musical, score, book, direction and choreography. It spawned five Broadway revivals and a highly successful 1971 film adaptation and has enjoyed enduring international popularity. It has also been a popular choice for school and community productions.

Fiddler on the Roof is based on Tevye (or Tevye the Dairyman) and his Daughters, a series of stories by Sholem Aleichem that he wrote in Yiddish between 1894 and 1914 about Jewish life in a village in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia at the turn of the 20th century. It is also influenced by Life Is with People, by Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog. Aleichem wrote a dramatic adaptation of the stories that he left unfinished at his death, but which was produced in Yiddish in 1919 by the Yiddish Art Theater and made into a film in the 1930s. In the late 1950s, a musical based on the stories, called Tevye and his Daughters, was produced Off-Broadway by Arnold Perl. Rodgers and Hammerstein and then Mike Todd briefly considered bringing this musical to Broadway but dropped the idea.

Investors and some in the media worried that Fiddler on the Roof might be considered "too Jewish" to attract mainstream audiences. Other critics considered that it was too culturally sanitized, " middlebrow" and superficial; Philip Roth, writing in The New Yorker, called it shtetl kitsch. For example, it portrays the local Russian officer as sympathetic, instead of brutal and cruel, as Sholom Aleichem had described him. Aleichem's stories ended with Tevye alone, his wife dead and his daughters scattered; at the end of Fiddler, the family members are alive, and most are emigrating together to America. The show found the right balance for its time, even if not entirely authentic, to become "one of the first popular post-Holocaust depictions of the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry". Harold Prince replaced the original producer Fred Coe and brought in director/choreographer Jerome Robbins. The writers and Robbins considered naming the musical Tevye, before landing on a title suggested by various paintings by Marc Chagall (Green Violinist (1924), Le Mort (1924), The Fiddler (1912)) that also inspired the original set design. Contrary to popular belief, the "title of the musical does not refer to any specific painting".

During rehearsals, one of the stars, Jewish actor Zero Mostel, feuded with Robbins, whom he held in contempt because Robbins had testified before the House Un-American Activities Committee and hid his Jewish heritage from the public. Other cast members also had run-ins with Robbins, who reportedly "abused the cast, drove the designers crazy [and] strained the good nature of Hal Prince".

Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman with five daughters, explains the customs of the Jews in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905, where their lives are as precarious as the perch of a fiddler on a roof (" Tradition"). At Tevye's home, everyone is busy preparing for the Sabbath meal. His sharp-tongued wife, Golde, orders their daughters, Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze and Bielke, about their tasks. Yente, the village matchmaker, arrives to tell Golde that Lazar Wolf, the wealthy butcher, a widower older than Tevye, wants to wed Tzeitel, the eldest daughter. The next two daughters, Hodel and Chava, are excited about Yente's visit, but Tzeitel illustrates how it could have bad results (" Matchmaker, Matchmaker"). A girl from a poor family must take whatever husband Yente brings, but Tzeitel wants to marry her childhood friend, Motel the tailor.

Tevye is delivering milk, pulling the cart himself, as his horse is lame. He asks God: Whom would it hurt " If I Were a Rich Man"? The bookseller tells Tevye news from the outside world of pogroms and expulsions. A stranger, Perchik, hears their conversation and scolds them for doing nothing more than talk. The men dismiss Perchik as a radical, but Tevye invites him home for the Sabbath meal and offers him food and a room in exchange for tutoring his two youngest daughters. Golde tells Tevye to meet Lazar after the Sabbath but does not tell him why, knowing that Tevye does not like Lazar. Tzeitel is afraid that Yente will find her a husband before Motel asks Tevye for her hand. But Motel resists: he is afraid of Tevye's temper, and tradition says that a matchmaker arranges marriages. Motel is also very poor and is saving up to buy a sewing machine before he approaches Tevye, to show that he can support a wife. The family gathers for the "Sabbath Prayer."

After the Sabbath, Tevye meets Lazar for a drink at the village inn, assuming mistakenly that Lazar wants to buy his cow. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Tevye agrees to let Lazar marry Tzeitel - with a rich butcher, his daughter will never want for anything. All join in the celebration of Lazar's good fortune; even the Russian youths at the inn join in the celebration and show off their dancing skills (" To Life"). Outside the inn, Tevye happens upon the Russian Constable, who has jurisdiction over the Jews in the town. The Constable warns him that there is going to be a "little unofficial demonstration" in the coming weeks (a euphemism for a minor pogrom). The Constable has sympathy for the Jewish community but is powerless to prevent the violence.

The next morning, after Perchik's lessons with the younger sisters, Tevye's second daughter Hodel mocks Perchik's Marxist interpretation of a Bible story. He, in turn, criticizes her for hanging on to the old traditions of Judaism, noting that the world is changing. To illustrate this, he dances with her, defying the prohibition against opposite sexes dancing together. The two begin to fall in love. Later, a hungover Tevye announces that he has agreed that Tzeitel will marry Lazar Wolf. Golde is overjoyed, but Tzeitel is devastated and begs Tevye not to force her. Motel arrives and tells Tevye that he is the perfect match for Tzeitel and that he and Tzeitel gave each other a pledge to marry. He promises that Tzeitel will not starve as his wife. Tevye is stunned and outraged at this breach of tradition, but impressed at the timid tailor's display of backbone. After some soul-searching ("Tevye's Monologue"), Tevye agrees to let them marry, but he worries about how to break the news to Golde. An overjoyed Motel celebrates with Tzeitel ("Miracle of Miracles").

In bed with Golde, Tevye pretends to be waking from a nightmare. Golde offers to interpret his dream, and Tevye "describes" it ("Tevye's Dream"). Golde's grandmother Tzeitel returns from the grave to bless the marriage of her namesake, but to Motel, not to Lazar Wolf. Lazar's formidable late wife, Fruma-Sarah, rises from her grave to warn, in graphic terms, of severe retribution if Tzeitel marries Lazar. The superstitious Golde is terrified, and she quickly counsels that Tzeitel must marry Motel. While returning from town, Tevye's third daughter, the bookish Chava, is teased and intimidated by some gentile youths. One, Fyedka, protects her, dismissing the others. He offers Chava the loan of a book, and a secret relationship begins.

The wedding day of Tzeitel and Motel arrives, and all the Jews join the ceremony (" Sunrise, Sunset") and the celebration ("The Wedding Dance"). Lazar gives a fine gift, but an argument arises with Tevye over the broken agreement. Perchik ends the tiff by breaking another tradition: he crosses the barrier between the men and women to dance with Tevye's daughter Hodel. The celebration ends abruptly when a group of Russians rides into the village to perform the "demonstration". They disrupt the party, damaging the wedding gifts and wounding Perchik, who attempts to fight back, and wreak more destruction in the village. Tevye instructs his family to clean up the mess.

Months later, Perchik tells Hodel he must return to Kiev to work for the revolution. He proposes marriage, admitting that he loves her, and says that he will send for her. She agrees ("Now I Have Everything"). They tell Tevye that they are engaged, and he is appalled that they are flouting tradition by making their own match, especially as Perchik is leaving. When he forbids the marriage, Perchik and Hodel inform him that they do not seek his permission, only his blessing. After more soul searching, Tevye relents - the world is changing, and he must change with it ("Tevye's Rebuttal"). He informs the young couple that he gives them his blessing and his permission.

Tevye explains these events to an astonished Golde. "Love," he says, "it's the new style." Tevye asks Golde, despite their own arranged marriage, " Do You Love Me?" After dismissing Tevye's question as foolish, she eventually admits that, after 25 years of living and struggling together and raising five daughters, she does. Meanwhile, Yente tells Tzeitel that she saw Chava with Fyedka. News spreads quickly in Anatevka that Perchik has been arrested and exiled to Siberia ("The Rumor/I Just Heard"), and Hodel is determined to join him there. At the railway station, she explains to her father that her home is with her beloved, wherever he may be, although she will always love her family ("Far From the Home I Love").

Time passes. Motel has purchased a used sewing machine, and he and Tzeitel have had a baby. Chava finally gathers the courage to ask Tevye to allow her marriage to Fyedka. Again Tevye reaches deep into his soul, but marriage outside the Jewish faith is a line he will not cross. He forbids Chava to speak to Fyedka again. When Golde brings news that Chava has eloped with Fyedka, Tevye wonders where he went wrong ("Chavaleh Sequence"). Chava returns and tries to reason with him, but he refuses to speak to her and tells the rest of the family to consider her dead. Meanwhile, rumors are spreading of the Russians expelling Jews from their villages. While the villagers are gathered, the Constable arrives to tell everyone that they have three days to pack up and leave the town. In shock, they reminisce about "Anatevka" and how hard it will be to leave what has been their home for so long.

As the Jews leave Anatevka, Chava and Fyedka stop to tell her family that they are also leaving for Kraków, unwilling to remain among the people who could do such things to others. Tevye still will not talk to her, but when Tzeitel says goodbye to Chava, Tevye prompts her to add "God be with you." Motel and Tzeitel go to Poland as well but will join the rest of the family when they have saved up enough money. As Tevye, Golde and their two youngest daughters leave the village for America, the fiddler begins to play. Tevye beckons with a nod, and the fiddler follows them out of the village.

"Prologue: Tradition" - Tevye and Company

"Matchmaker, Matchmaker" - Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava

"If I Were a Rich Man" - Tevye

"Sabbath Prayer" - Tevye, Golde, Company

"To Life" - Tevye, Lazar Wolf, Russian soloist and Men

"Tevye's Monologue" - Tevye

"Miracle of Miracles" - Motel

"Tevye's Dream" - Tevye, Golde, Grandma Tzeitel, Rabbi, Fruma-Sarah and Company

"Sunrise, Sunset" - Tevye, Golde, Perchik, Hodel and Company

"The Bottle Dance" - Instrumental

"Entr'acte" - Orchestra

"Now I Have Everything" - Perchik and Hodel

"Tevye's Rebuttal" - Tevye

"Do You Love Me?" - Tevye and Golde

"The Rumor/I Just Heard" - Yente and Villagers §

"Far From the Home I Love" - Hodel

"Chavaleh (Little Bird)" - Tevye

"Anatevka" - The Company

§ The 2004 revival featured a song for Yente and some women of the village (Rivka and Mirala) titled "Topsy Turvy", discussing the disappearing role of the matchmaker in society. The number replaced "The Rumor/I Just Heard".

All of the characters are Jewish, except as noted:

Tevye, a poor milkman with five daughters. A firm supporter of the traditions of his faith, he finds many of his convictions tested by the actions of his three oldest daughters.

Golde, Tevye's sharp-tongued wife.

Tzeitel, their oldest daughter, about nineteen. She loves her childhood friend Motel and marries him, even though he's poor, begging her father not to force her to marry Lazar Wolf.

Hodel, their daughter, about seventeen. Intelligent and spirited, she falls in love with Perchik and later joins him in Siberia.

Chava, their daughter, about fifteen. A shy book lover, who falls in love with Fyedka.

Motel Kamzoil, a poor but hardworking tailor who loves, and later marries, Tzeitel.

Perchik, a student revolutionary who comes to Anatevka and falls in love with Hodel. He leaves for Kiev, is arrested and exiled to Siberia.

Fyedka, a young Christian. He shares Chava's passion for reading and is outraged by the Russians' treatment of the Jews.

Lazar Wolf, the wealthy village butcher. Widower of Fruma-Sarah. Attempts to arrange a marriage for himself to Tzeitel.

Yente, the gossipy village matchmaker who matches Tzeitel and Lazar.

Grandma Tzeitel, Golde's dead grandmother, who rises from the grave in Tevye's "nightmare."

Fruma-Sarah, Lazar Wolf's dead wife, who also rises from the grave in the "nightmare."

Rabbi, the wise village leader.

Constable, the head of the local Russian police, a Christian.

Following its tryout at Detroit's Fisher Theatre in July and August 1964, then Washington in August to September, the original Broadway production opened on September 22, 1964, at the Imperial Theatre, transferred in 1967 to the Majestic Theatre and in 1970 to The Broadway Theatre, and ran for a record-setting total of 3,242 performances. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins - his last original Broadway staging. The set, designed in the style of Marc Chagall's paintings, was by Boris Aronson. A colorful logo for the production, also inspired by Chagall's work, was designed by Tom Morrow. Chagall reportedly did not like the musical.

The cast included Zero Mostel as Tevye the milkman, Maria Karnilova as his wife Golde (each of whom won a Tony for their performances), Beatrice Arthur as Yente the matchmaker, Austin Pendleton as Motel, Bert Convy as Perchik the student revolutionary, Gino Conforti as the fiddler, and Julia Migenes as Hodel. Mostel ad-libbed increasingly as the run went on, "which drove the authors up the wall." Joanna Merlin originated the role of Tzeitel, which was later assumed by Bette Midler during the original run. Carol Sawyer was Fruma Sarah, Adrienne Barbeau took a turn as Hodel, and Pia Zadora played the youngest daughter, Bielke. Both Peg Murray and Dolores Wilson made extended appearances as Golde, while other stage actors who have played Tevye include Herschel Bernardi, Theodore Bikel and Harry Goz (in the original Broadway run), and Leonard Nimoy. Mostel's understudy in the original production, Paul Lipson, went on to appear as Tevye in more performances than any other actor (until Chaim Topol), clocking over 2,000 performances in the role in the original run and several revivals. Florence Stanley took over the role of Yente nine months into the run. The production earned $1,574 for every dollar invested in it. It was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, including Best Musical, score, book, direction and choreography, and acting awards for Mostel and Karnilova.

The original London West End production opened on February 16, 1967, at Her Majesty's Theatre and played for 2,030 performances. It starred Topol as Tevye, a role he had previously played in Tel Aviv, and Miriam Karlin as Golde. Alfie Bass, Lex Goudsmit and Barry Martin eventually took over as Tevye. Topol later played Tevye in the 1971 film adaptation, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, and in several revivals over the next four decades. The show was revived in London for short seasons in 1983 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre and in 1994 at the London Palladium.[citation needed ]

The first Broadway revival opened on December 28, 1976, and ran for 176 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre. Zero Mostel starred as Tevye. Robbins directed and choreographed. A second Broadway revival opened on July 9, 1981, and played for a limited run (53 performances) at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater. It starred Herschel Bernardi as Tevye and Karnilova as Golde. Other cast members included Liz Larsen, Fyvush Finkel, Lawrence Leritz and Paul Lipson. Robbins directed and choreographed. The third Broadway revival opened on November 18, 1990, and ran for 241 performances at the George Gershwin Theatre. Topol starred as Tevye, and Marcia Lewis was Golde. Robbins' production was reproduced by Ruth Mitchell and choreographer Sammy Dallas Bayes. The production won the Tony Award for Best Revival.

A fourth Broadway revival opened on February 26, 2004, and ran for 36 previews and 781 performances at the Minskoff Theatre. Alfred Molina, and later Harvey Fierstein, starred as Tevye, and Randy Graff, and later Andrea Martin and Rosie O'Donnell, was Golde. Barbara Barrie and later Nancy Opel played Yente, Laura Michelle Kelly played Hodel and Lea Michele played Sprintze. It was directed by David Leveaux. This production replaced Yente's song "The Rumor" with a song for Yente and two other women called "Topsy-Turvy". The production was nominated for six Tonys but did not win any. In June 2014, to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary, a gala celebration and reunion was held at The Town Hall in New York City to benefit National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, with appearances by many of the cast members of the various Broadway productions and the 1971 film, as well as Sheldon Harnick, Chita Rivera, Karen Ziemba, Joshua Bell, Jerry Zaks and others.

The fifth Broadway revival began previews on November 20 and opened on December 20, 2015 at the Broadway Theatre, with concept and choreography based on the original by Jerome Robbins. Bartlett Sher directed, and Hofesh Shechter choreographed. The cast starred Danny Burstein as Tevye, with Jessica Hecht as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Tzeitel, Adam Kantor as Motel, Ben Rappaport as Perchik, Samantha Massell as Hodel and Melanie Moore as Chava. Judy Kuhn replaced Hecht as Golde on November 22, 2016, for the last five weeks of the run. Designers include Michael Yeargan (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes) and Donald Holder (lighting). Initial reviews were mostly positive, finding Burstein and the show touching. The production was nominated for three Tony Awards but won none. It closed on December 31, 2016 after 463 performances.

Fiddler was first revived in London in 1983 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre (a four-month season starring Topol) and again in 1994 at the London Palladium for two months and then on tour, again starring Topol, and directed and choreographed by Sammy Dallas Bayes, recreating the Robbins production.

After a two-month tryout at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield, England, a London revival opened on May 19, 2007, at the Savoy Theatre starring Henry Goodman as Tevye, Beverley Klein as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Hodel, Damian Humbley as Perchik and Victor McGuire as Lazar Wolf. The production was directed by Lindsay Posner. Robbins' choreography was recreated by Sammy Dallas Bayes (who did the same for the 1990 Broadway revival), with additional choreography by Kate Flatt.

A revival played at the Menier Chocolate Factory from November 23, 2018 until March 9, 2019, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Andy Nyman as Tevye and Judy Kuhn as Golde. The production transferred to the Playhouse Theatre in the West End on March 21, 2019, with an official opening on March 27. Replacement players included Maria Friedman as Golde and Anita Dobson as Yente. The run closed on November 2, 2019.

A 2003 national tour played for seven months, with a radical design, directed by Julian Woolford and choreographed by Chris Hocking. The production's minimalist set and costumes were monochromatic, and Fruma-Sarah was represented by a 12-foot puppet. This production was revived in 2008 starring Joe McGann.

The show toured the UK again in 2013 and 2014 starring Paul Michael Glaser as Tevye with direction and choreography by Craig Revel Horwood.

A revival played at Chichester Festival Theatre from 10 July to 2 September 2017, directed by Daniel Evans and starring Omid Djalili as Tevye and Tracy-Ann Oberman as Golde.

The original Australian production opened on June 16, 1967, at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney. It starred Hayes Gordon as Tevye and Brigid Lenihan as Golde. The production ran for two years. The first professional revival tour was staged by the Australian Opera in 1984 with Gordon again playing Tevye. A young Anthony Warlow played Fyedka.

In 1998, 2005, 2006 and 2007, Topol recreated his role as Tevye in Australian productions, with seasons in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Wellington and Auckland. The musical was again revived in Melbourne and Sydney in 2015-2016 with Anthony Warlow as Tevye, Sigrid Thornton as Golde and Lior as Motel.

Topol in 'Fiddler on the Roof': The Farewell Tour opened on January 20, 2009, in Wilmington, Delaware. Topol left the tour in November 2009 due to torn muscles. He was replaced by Harvey Fierstein and Theodore Bikel. The cast included Mary Stout, Susan Cella, Bill Nolte, Erik Liberman, Rena Strober, and Stephen Lee Anderson.

National Yiddish Theater Folksbiene mounted a Yiddish adaptation, Fidler Afn Dakh, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, under the direction of Joel Grey, with a translation by Shraga Friedman that was first used in a 1965 Israeli production. The cast included Jackie Hoffman as Yente, Steven Skybell as Tevye, Daniel Kahn as Perchik, Stephanie Lynne Mason as Hodel and Raquel Nobile as Shprintze. Previews began on July 4, and opening night was July 15, 2018. The production played through the end of that year. It then transferred to Stage 42, an Off-Broadway theatre, with Skybell, Hoffman, Mason and Nobile reprising their roles. Previews began February 11, with opening night on February 21, 2019. Musical staging was by Staś Kmieć (based on the original choreography by Robbins), with set design by Beowulf Boritt, costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, sound by Dan Moses Schreier and lighting by Peter Kaczorowski. The production closed on January 5, 2020. It won the 2019 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical.

The musical was an international hit, with early productions playing throughout Europe, in South America, Africa and Australia; 100 different productions were mounted in the former West Germany in the first three decades after the musical's premiere, and within five years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, 23 productions were staged in the former East Germany; and it was the longest-running musical ever seen in Tokyo. According to BroadwayWorld, the musical has been staged "in every metropolitan city in the world from Paris to Beijing."

A Hebrew language staging was produced in Tel Aviv by the Israeli impresario Giora Godik in the 1960s. This version was so successful that in 1965 Godik produced a Yiddish version translated by Shraga Friedman. A 2008 Hebrew-language production ran at the Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv for more than six years. It was directed by Moshe Kepten, choreographed by Dennis Courtney and starred Natan Datner.

Un violon sur le toît was produced in French at Paris's théâtre Marigny from November 1969 to May 1970, resuming from September to January 1971 (a total of 292 performances) with Ivan Rebroff as Tevye and Maria Murano as Golde. Another adaptation was produced in 2005 at the théâtre Comédia in Paris with Franck Vincent as Tevye and Isabelle Ferron as Golde. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival produced the musical from April to October 2013 at the Festival Theatre directed and choreographed by Donna Feore. It starred Scott Wentworth as Tevye. An Italian version, Il violinista sul tetto, with lyrics sung in Yiddish and the orchestra on stage also serving as chorus, was given a touring production in 2004, with Moni Ovadia as Tevye and director; it opened at Teatro Municipale Valli in Reggio Emilia.

The musical receives about 500 amateur productions a year in the US alone.

A film version was released by United Artists in 1971, directed and produced by Norman Jewison, and Stein adapted his own book for the screenplay. Chaim Topol starred. The film received mostly positive reviews from film critics and became the highest-grossing film of 1971. Fiddler received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Director for Jewison, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Topol, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Leonard Frey (as Motel; in the original Broadway production, Frey was the rabbi's son). It won three, including best score/adaptation for arranger-conductor John Williams.

In the film version, the character of Yente is reduced, and Perchik's song to Hodel "Now I Have Everything" is cut and replaced by a scene in Kiev. The "Chagall color palette" of the original Broadway production was exchanged for a grittier, more realistic depiction of the village of Anatevka.

Theatre historian John Kenrick wrote that the original Broadway cast album released by RCA Victor in 1964, "shimmers - an essential recording in any show lover's collection", praising the cast. The remastered CD includes two recordings not on the original album, the bottle dance from the wedding scene and "Rumor" performed by Beatrice Arthur. In 2020, the recording was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Kenrick writes that while the original Broadway cast version is the clear first choice among recordings of this musical, he also likes the Columbia Records studio cast album with Bernardi as Tevye; the film soundtrack, although he feels that the pace drags a bit; and some of the numerous foreign versions, including the Israeli, German and Japanese casts.

MGM and producers Dan Jinks and Aaron Harnick are planning a new film adaptation of the musical, with Thomas Kail directing and co-producing, and Steven Levenson penning the screenplay.

The musical's popularity has led to numerous references in popular media and elsewhere. A documentary film about the musical's history and legacy, Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, was released in 2019.

Parodies relating to the show have included Antenna on the Roof (Mad Magazine #156, January 1973), which speculated about the lives of Tevye's descendants living in an assimilated 1970s suburban America. The H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society published a musical theatre and album parody of Fiddler on the Roof called A Shoggoth on the Roof, which incorporates the works of H. P. Lovecraft. In the film Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Robin Williams parodies "Matchmaker". Spanish comedian and TV-host Jose Mota parodied "If I Were a Rich Man" with the song "Si no fuera rico" ("If I weren't a rich man") during his 2008 New Year's Eve special.

References to the musical on television have included a 2005 episode of Gilmore Girls titled "Jews and Chinese Food", involving a production of the musical. A skit by The Electric Company about a village fiddler with a fear of heights, so he is deemed "Fiddler on the Chair". In the episode " When You Wish Upon a Weinstein" (2003), William Shatner is depicted as playing Tevye in a scene from Fiddler. The second episode of Muppets Tonight, in 1996, featured Garth Brooks doing a piece of "If I were a Rich Man" in which he kicks several chickens off the roof. "The Rosie Show", a 1996 episode of , parodied the dream scene, when Mr. Sheffield fakes a dream to convince Fran not to be a regular on a TV show. A 2011 episode of NBC's , entitled "Competitive Wine Tasting", included a parody of Fiddler titled Fiddler, Please! with an all-black cast dressed in Fiddler on the Roof costumes singing "It's Hard to Be Jewish in Russia, Yo". Chabad.org kicked off their 2008 "To Life" Telethon with a pastiche of the fiddle solo and bottle dance from the musical.

Broadway references have included , where a "Grail dance" sends up the "bottle dance" in Fiddler's wedding scene. In 2001, Chicago's Improv Olympic produced a well-received parody, "The Roof Is on Fiddler", that used most of the original book of the musical but replaced the songs with 1980's pop songs. The original Broadway cast of the musical and the Broadway 2004 revival cast of Fiddler on the Roof collaborated for a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit and produced an approximately 10-minute-long show, "Avenue Jew", that incorporated characters from both shows, including puppets.

Songs from the musical have been covered by notable artists. For example, in 1964, jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley recorded the album Fiddler on the Roof, which featured jazz arrangements of eight songs from the musical. awarded the album 4 stars and states "Cannonball plays near his peak; this is certainly the finest album by this particular sextet". That same year, Eydie Gormé released a single of "Matchmaker", and jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery recorded the same tune for his album . In 1999, Knitting Factory Records released Knitting on the Roof, a compilation CD featuring covers of Fiddler songs by alternative bands such as The Residents, Negativland, and The Magnetic Fields. Indie rock band Bright Eyes recorded an adaptation of "Sunrise, Sunset" on their 2000 album Fevers and Mirrors. Allmusic gave the album a favorable review, and the online music magazine Pitchfork Media ranked it at number 170 on their list of top 200 albums of the 2000s. In 2005, Melbourne punk band Yidcore released a reworking of the entire show called Fiddling on Ya Roof.

Gwen Stefani and Eve covered "If I Were a Rich Man" as " Rich Girl" for Stefani's 2004 debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in 2004. The song was inspired by the 1993 British Louchie Lou & Michie One ragga version of the same name. Stefani's version reached #7 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it remained for over six months. It was certified gold by the RIAA and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration. It was also covered in 2008 and 2009 by the Capitol Steps, poking fun at Illinois politics, especially then-Governor Rod Blagojevich. The Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps performs the "Bottle Dance" from Fiddler as a "recurring trademark", including at the Drum Corps International World Championships.

The song "Sunrise, Sunset" is often played at weddings,[citation needed ] and in 2011 Sheldon Harnick wrote two versions of the song, suitable for same-sex weddings, with minor word changes. For example, for male couples, changes include "When did they grow to be so handsome".

Fiddler's original Broadway production in 1964 was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, including Best Musical, score, and book, and Robbins won for best direction and choreography. Mostel and Karnilova won as best leading actor and best featured actress. In 1972, the show won a special Tony on becoming the longest-running musical in Broadway history.

Its revivals have also been honored. At the 1981 Tony Awards, Bernardi was nominated as best actor. Ten years later, the 1991 revival won for best revival, and Topol was nominated as best actor. The 2004 revival was nominated for six Tony Awards and three Drama Desk Awards but won none. The 2007 West End revival was nominated for Olivier Awards for best revival, and Goodman was nominated as best actor. The 2019 West End revival won the Olivier Award for best revival, and it received a further 7 nominations.

Altman, Richard (1971). The Making of a Musical: Fiddler on the Roof. Crown Publishers.

Isenberg, Barbara (2014). Tradition!: The Highly Improbable, Ultimately Triumphant Broadway-to-Hollywood Story of Fiddler on the Roof, the World's Most Beloved Musical. New York: St. Martin's Press. ISBN 978-0-312-59142-7.

Solomon, Alisa (2013). Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof. Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0805092609.

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Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock, lyrics by Sheldon Harnick, and book by Joseph Stein, set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in or around 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem.

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Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance.

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