SLIDESHOW: “Fiddler on the Roof” rehearsal<\/a>]<\/em><\/p>\nAllen called the production of this play timely.<\/p>\n
\u201cTimes are interesting in our country right now,\u201d she said. \u201cAnti-Semitism is on the rise. We\u2019re seeing Nazis marching openly and more often than we have in decades. \u2018Fiddler on the Roof\u2019 isn\u2019t only about anti-Semitism, though that\u2019s part of it. People love the show because it\u2019s about change, and it\u2019s about surviving persecution, and it\u2019s about the power of community, and it\u2019s also about just how crushing prejudice and societal pressure can be. It\u2019s hopeful but it\u2019s horribly, horribly sad. \u2026It speaks to us in a way easier lessons don\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n
Latitude 58 is an educational, non-profit theater group founded in 2012, melding children\u2019s theatre and community theatre together. The group has grown, from doing their first performance, the one-act musical \u201cSunshine\u201d in a room above Juneau Urgent Care, to \u201cFiddler on the Roof,\u201d which has 53 people onstage at Thunder Mountain High School.<\/p>\n
The play will feature the dancing from the original musical which Allen called \u201cmore organic and easier\u201d than the musical they performed last year, \u201cWhite Christmas,\u201d which involved tap dancing. They\u2019ll even be doing the infamous bottle dance (but with plastic bottles), and Tevye will do his iconic \u201cIf I Were a Rich Man\u201d shimmy.<\/p>\n
The cast will sing, accompanied by a small orchestral pit. Some of the cast will double as a character on stage or a musician in the pit, like Solomon Unzicker, who will play the Fiddler. Allen said she made only one tweak to the original musical. The final song of the show \u201cAnatevka\u201d is written to be sung by six people, she said, but she will have as many characters as she can perform the song.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish sometimes audience members could be in the rehearsal room and see just how much this cast loves this play and each other,\u201d she said. \u201cI looked up from (a recent rehearsal) and we were finishing the final scene \u2026where the family is walking off the stage. I looked up and half my chorus is crying. They\u2019ve seen this I don\u2019t know how many times. \u2026 The amount of joy this cast has put into this show is humbling beyond words. \u201c<\/p>\n
One of Allen\u2019s biggest fears when deciding to put on \u201cFiddler on the Roof\u201d was finding somebody to play Tevye. \u201c\u2026if Tevye is not good, it\u2019s really hard to salvage the show,\u201d she said, but went on to say she is happy with her casting decision to give the role to Michael Wittig.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe had a couple of good choices, possibilities on the first day of auditions, but Michael is such a strong performer and he is one of the hardest workers I know,\u201d she said. \u201cHe has taken this from the very beginning and refined it, and worked with it, and asked questions, and he takes it home and he thinks about it and he works on it some more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wittig began acting in 1994, and has performed with Juneau Lyric Opera, Perseverance Theatre, Theater in the Rough, and with Theater at Latitude 58. He had initially auditioned to provide moral support for his son, who ended up being cast as the Yussel the hatmaker, and then he landed the lead role. It was a bigger role than what he initially wanted, he said, but as soon as he knew he was cast, he dove into the script so he could rehearse off book as soon as possible. He\u2019d seen the musical performed in the past as well as the film. He got his hands on \u201cTevye the Dairyman\u201d by Solomon Naumovich Rabinovich, which \u201cFiddler on the Roof\u201d came from, and received new insights into the character.<\/p>\n
\u201cI did not start in acting until my 30s, and ever since I got involved I almost feel like kicking myself for not getting into it sooner because it\u2019s a great deal of fun,\u201d he said. \u201cI kind of lament all my friends in high school who used to do this stuff and no longer do it. What are they thinking! So I\u2019m very happy to be working at Theater at Latitude 58 and I\u2019m pleased to see all the kids involved in theater and pass that story along to all of them because it\u2019s a lifelong hobby. I\u2019m having a great deal of fun and really, that\u2019s what it\u2019s all about. \u201c<\/p>\n
\u201cFiddler on the Roof\u201d runs from Friday, Nov. 17-Sunday, Nov. 19 at TMHS. The Friday performance is at 7 p.m., the Saturday performances at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., and the Sunday performance at 2 p.m. Tickets are $20 for general admission, $10 for students and seniors. They can be purchased through Vendini, at the Juneau Arts and Culture Center and at Hearthside Books. To learn more about Theater at Latitude 58, visit them on Facebook or their website theateratlatitude58.com.<\/p>\n
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\u2022 Clara Miller is the staff writer for the Capital City Weekly.<\/b><\/p>\n
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Theater at Latitude 58 will be bringing the classic musical \u201cFiddler on the Roof\u201d to Juneau. \u201cThis show has a huge emotional range,\u201d Director Karen Allen said. \u201cTevye tells us in the opening monologue it\u2019s all about trying to keep your balance \u2026that our lives are as shaky as the fiddler on the roof. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":6612,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[74],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-6611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life","tag-arts-and-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6611\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6612"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6611"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=6611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}