By: Phoebe Bonin ’26
Hello, this is Phoebe, and this is the world according to Phoebe, a weekly podcast where I talk about things! don’t expect any topic for each episode, they will come and go. I might talk one week about a book I read and the next week talk about a cookie ethical dilemmas, spoiler alert that what I’m going to talk about next week.
This week, I’m going to be talking about Fiddler on the roof and the middle school production of it. So as you may know, this year, the middle school is doing your production of Fiddler on the roof. Now you may be asking Phoebe, what is Fiddler on the roof about? And first I might reply, how do you not know that Fiddler on the roof is about?
Secondly, I would tell you what it’s about! So Fiddler on the Roof is a story of a family in 1905 Russia, struggling with tradition and arranged marriages, women’s say in things, and religion. and all these fun topics and dancing and singing throughout all of it. So there are a lot of different characters with a lot of different Yiddish names that could be hard to remember, but I think we will have a playbook where you can see who plays who
If you don’t, here is your character overview. Now, number one, Miles Musticoff, eighth grade who plays Tevye. Tevye is the main guy who is kind of the narrator of all of this. Expect a lot of different fun dances that he does. And if you see him in the majority of the scenes, it’s probably Tevye.
Number two, Golde. Who’s played by me, Phoebe eighth grade. She is the motherly character. So expect a lot of pointing and yelling, shushing, small children,! Golde and Tevye have five children, five daughters! Tzitel played by Morgan in the eighth grade. Chava played by Zivi in the seventh grade, Hodel played by Gemma in the seventh grade, Shprintze and Beilke who are played by Kiki and Helina in the sixth grade.
So there’s a lot of marriages, both arranged and unarranged in the show, mostly with Hodel, Chava and Tzitel, marrying different men. And those men,, not telling you in order for spoilers, are Motel played by William Henry Snedeker the fifth in the seventh grade, Perchik played by Ari in the seventh grade, And Fyedka played by Tate in the eighth grade. This show has a lot of themes of tradition coming to play starting in the first moments of the show where the song tradition plays, and a lot of themes of breaking tradition with different marriages and rules and religion.
It’s definitely a story that can relate to modern times, but also times in 1905 Russia, which is fun. There’s a lot of dancing and a lot of complicated choreography and a lot of romance. You can make fun of your friends if they are in the show. I really recommend you go watch it because it’s a fun show and it’s not super long. We’ve been working very hard on it. Showtimes are Thursday next week, 7:00 PM. Friday next week, 7:00 PM. And Sunday, next week at 2:00 PM as a matinee, I will see you there!