Olney Theatre Continues Holiday Traditions

Fiddler on the Roof plays on the New Mainstage through December 31.

Tickets are just $25 - $46 with discounts available to groups, seniors, and students. All kids are ½ price!

A simple and universal story, Fiddler on the Roof is set in pre-Revolutionary Russia and centers on Tevye, a milkman who struggles to raise his daughters in a world that is quickly changing around his traditional Jewish community. Tevye and his wife, Golde, enlist a matchmaker as is the "tradition," to find husbands for their three eldest daughters – but each daughter finds a husband of her own: a tailor, a student, and a Gentile. While Tevye can accept the first two, he cannot sanction the third. The Bock and Harnick score contains some of the most beautiful music ever written for the stage such as "If I Were a Rich Man;" "Matchmaker, Matchmaker;" "Sunrise, Sunset;" and "To Life."

Fiddler on the Roof still resonates today. "This is a story about a man, his relationship with God, and his unfailing love for his family. It is also about a struggle of a people to survive, to live, and to be at home, and how a belief system creates and also destroys life. It is a very pertinent play to do in 2007," said Stage Director John Vreeke. This is Vreeke's directorial debut at Olney. He most recently directed Wooly Mammoth's Martha, Josie, and the Chinese Elvis to much acclaim.

Tevye, will be played by two-time Helen Hayes Award winner Rick Foucheux. This will be Foucheux's first appearance at Olney. He most recently appeared in Dead Man's Cell Phone at Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, where he is a company member. His wife, Golde, will be played by Sherri L. Edelen. Edelen has performed in the national tours of Big and Nunsense. Her regional credits include Sunday in the Park with George and Merrily We Roll Along at The Kennedy Center. Sherri received the Helen Hayes Award for Best Actress for Side Show at Signature Theatre.

The eldest daughter Tzietel will be played by Patricia Hurley. Hurley returns to Olney having performed in Godspell, 13 Rue de L'Amour, Cinderella, and The Heiress. The second sister, Hodel, will be played by Jenna Sokolowski. Sokolowski's credits include Cinderella at Olney, The Jungle Book at Imagination Stage, and Urinetown (Helen Hayes Award for Best Supporting Actress) at Signature Theatre. Margo Seibert just finished performing in Olney's Of Mice and Men and in last season's Cinderella. Seibert will play Chava, the middle sister.

Paul Downs Colaizzo will play Perchik, the student who falls in love with Hodel. His New York credits include Suicycle: An Attempted Theatrical Rock Experiment, The Spider Operas, and The Brain from Planet X at New York Musical Theatre Festival. Motel, the tailor, will be played by Andrew Boza. Boza was most recently in Olney's summer musical Godspell. Evan Casey will perform as Fydeka, the Gentile. Casey has performed at Olney in Lend Me a Tenor and Bye, Bye Birdie.

Karlah Hamilton, will play the infamous matchmaker Yente. Hamilton was last seen at Olney this past season as the Stepmother in Cinderella and Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes. Harry A. Winter, will play the butcher Lazar Wolf. Winter has toured nationally in Gigi and Jolson: the Musical.

The exceptional cast is rounded out by by Ron Sarro (The Rabbi), Chris Sizemore (Sasha), H. Alan Hoffman (Avram), Sara Brunow (Fruma-Sarah), Kate Arnold (Shaindel), Lily Goldberg and Rachel Blaustein (Shprintze), Amanda Montell and Natalie Perez-Duel who are double cast as Bielke, JJ Kaczynski (Mordcha), Michael Crea (Mendel), Timothy Dale Lewis (Nachum), Carl Randolph (the Constable), and Andrew Zox as the Fiddler. Mary C. Sheehan, Kyle Schliefer, Zach Phillips, Jordan Silver, Jamie Eacker, and James Garland are all members of the ensemble. The show's swings are Jamie Eacker and James Garland.

Though the audience will certainly get a good dose of tradition, this production will neither be a revival or a museum piece. "There are many things the audience will want to see and we will not disappoint them, but we will also add a new spin to it at the same time," said Vreeke. For example, the entire cast will be on stage for the entire play. Actors will be silhouettes for scenes in which they are not present.

Set Designer Jon Savage (Olney's The Elephant Man and Omnium Gatherum) has designed a very open set that consists of ramps that lead to multiple levels on the stage. There will be no set change interruptions, which will make this show seamless and tightly paced. The set will be augmented by projections evocative of the art of Vincent Van Gogh and Marc Chagall.

Musical Director Christopher Youstra (Olney's Cinderella, Anything Goes, and Oliver!) will take his 5-piece band out-of-the-pit. Like the actors, the musicians will be on stage the entire time with the action moving around and through them. Sometimes the band will function as a pit orchestra, but sometimes they will become the village band.

The design team is completed by Helen Hayes Award-winning Lighting Designer Charlie Morrison (Olney's The Elephant Man and Of Mice and Men, among many others), Resident Costume Designer Howard Vincent Kurtz (Olney's Brooklyn Boy, An Enemy of the People, and Oliver!), Choreographer Gabrielle Orcha, Sound Designer Jarett Pisani, Dialect Coach Elizabeth van den Berg, and Wig Designer Karlah Hamilton.

Sholem Aleichem was a popular humorist and Russian Jewish author of Yiddish literature, including novels, short stories, and plays. He did much to promote Yiddish writers, and was the first to pen children's literature in Yiddish. Fiddler on the Roof is loosely based on his stories and was the first commercially successful English-language play about Eastern European Jewish life. The original Broadway production of the show, which opened in 1964, was the first musical to surpass the 3,000 performance mark, and it held the record for longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until Grease surpassed its run. -- www.olneytheatre.org