Set in the Jewish village of Anatevka during the Russian Revolution of 1905, Fiddler on the Roof centers around a dairyman named Tevye and his five daughters. As the Jews are being forced out of Russia, Tevye's three eldest daughters find love outside of the marriages that were arranged for them.
"The daughters are breaking away from tradition, as opposed to a matchmaker making the match," said Elaine Meder, the show's director.
Fiddler on the Roof is the most recent in a flock of local theatrical productions to be staged at the Boal Barn Playhouse.
"It's a barn in every way possible," said Jeff Brown, who plays Tevye.
This, as one could imagine, complicates the production a little.
The show's 12-piece orchestra, for example, will not be seated in the usual pit beneath the stage. Instead, its members and musical director Russell Bloom will be up in the barn's hayloft, unable to see the performance below.
In addition to watching the stage via monitor, the orchestra members will rely on Bloom's hand movements for cues.
"I'm the conduit between the pit and the actors," Bloom said.
Since rehearsals started just three weeks ago, Bloom and the orchestra members have been sharing the loft with its indigenous inhabitants: bats.
Bloom said the flying critters don't pose too much of a threat.
"They usually go out to dinner during the first act," he said.
The stage in the Boal Barn Playhouse is not typical either -- it's circular, and in thespian lingo is called "theater-in-the-round." The actors must adjust to performing with the audience surrounding them.
Matthew Swope (graduate-voice performance and pedagogy), who plays Perchik, a revolutionary thinker in love with one of Tevye's daughters, said the audience benefits from theater-in-the-round performances.
"You really get a three-dimensional perspective of things, instead of it being like you're watching TV," Swope said.
The show includes some actors who have performed professionally, including Swope, as well as newcomers to the stage.
Somewhere in the middle of those experience levels is Brown, who played Tevye when he attended Slippery Rock University. Twenty-three years later, he auditioned to play Tevye again on a whim, thinking he didn't even have a chance.
"Everybody in the show is an incredibly accomplished singer, except me," Brown joked.
But Bloom, who has been doing shows at the Boal Barn Playhouse off and on for a decade, begs to differ. He said the cast of Fiddler on the Roof is vocally the strongest he has ever heard.
These strong vocals combine with the show's catchy tunes, which Meder describes as beautifully composed and orchestrated. With less than a week until opening night, Meder already has high hopes for the production.
"I saw the Broadway show and, actually, ours is going to be better," Meder said.
