NICEVILLE — When “Fiddler on the Roof” opened Sept. 22, 1964, it ran 3,242 performances before closing almost eight years later. It was revived four times on the Great White Way alone and has had thousands of productions around the world.
Now, the latest national tour of the show that brought such Broadway standards as “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Tradition,” “Sunrise, Sunset” and “Matchmaker, Matchmaker” comes Dec. 3 to the Mattie Kelley Arts Center.
A full-scale musical masterpiece, the professional touring production features a crew of 67 actors, musicians and technical staff to recreate and populate Anatevka, a poor Russian Jewish village in 1905, on the Russian Revolution’s eve.
Times, they are a-changing, even for the village’s sheltered people.
“Fiddler” has stolen audiences’ hearts all over the world with its humor, warmth and honesty. Based on Sholom Aleichem’s stories, it has a rousing, heartwarming score and timeless songs as Tevye, a poor milkman, tries to keep his family and village’s beloved traditions and faith strong despite a changing world.
With memorable, hummable tunes by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, Broadway legend Hal Prince directed and choreographed the original production.
In the production coming to Northwest Florida State, veteran Broadway actors Jimmy Ferraro and Dee Etta Rowe, who have actually been married to each other for 25 years, just like their characters, will play the starring roles of Tevye and his wife Goldie.
With its warmth and sometimes rousing, sometimes heartfelt numbers, “Fiddler on the Roof” is a celebration of “Tradition” and a salute “To Life.”
La chaim!
Want to go?
The national “Fiddler on the Roof” tour plays at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 3 at Northwest Florida State College’s Mattie Kelley Arts Center. Tickets are $45 each from the box office by phone, online or in person. Call 729-6000 or see www.mattiekellyartscenter.org.
Contact News Bulletin Arts & Entertainment Editor Brian Hughes at 850-682-6524 or brianh@crestviewbulletin.com. Follow him on Twitter @cnbBrian.
This article originally appeared on Crestview News Bulletin: PREVIEW: ‘Fiddler on the Roof’ coming Dec. 3 to Niceville