Kody Jones and Joseph Brauer are working magic with area youngsters who come to Arts Bonita for theater direction and performance opportunities. With their current production of “Fiddler on the Roof JR,” Jones and Brauer are doing more than advancing their students’ singing, dancing and acting proficiency.
“Our artistic director, Joseph Brauer, takes painstaking time and energy to make sure he’s picking the right shows, not just to advance the kids and techniques and elements of theater that we’re trying to instruct them in, but also to make sure that we’re connecting to materials, subjects and themes that our community also needs,” said Jones. “We picked ‘Fiddler on the Roof JR’ because of this national and global anti-Semitism that’s happening, this ongoing idea of intolerance and hate, and we think it’s timely as well with the war that’s happening in Ukraine.”
While parallels to the circumstances presently being experienced by marginalized communities are abundant, Cassie Grossarth, who plays Golde, thinks the musical is also about female empowerment.
“In this time period, women, like, are being told what to do,” Grossarth observed. “But throughout the show, they’re getting their own chance to do what they want to do … just showing that everybody does matter and everybody does have a voice, which is really nice to see.”
Jack Pustizzi plays Motel the tailor. He says that there’s one theme that’s universal to all cultures and genders. It’s the one encapsulated by the musical’s opening number, “Tradition.”
“’Fiddler on the Roof’ is all about the balance between tradition and the ways of old and embracing what’s new and new ideas,” said Pustizzi. “Sometimes you need to bend the traditions in a way to incorporate these new ideas, and the question is to what extent you bend before traditions break, or in case of the fiddler, falls off the roof.”
Themes aside, Arts Bonita’s edition of “Fiddler on the Roof JR.” is well acted, beautifully sung and intricately choreographed.
It’s on stage in the Hinman Auditorium through June 21.
MORE INFORMATION:
Fiddler on the Roof JR is a condensed version of the nine-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical. The story follows Tevye the milkman as he tries to protect his daughters and his way of life from a changing world. Created by Broadway legends Jerome Robbins (“On the Town,” “Billion Dollar Baby,” “West Side Story,” “The King and I,” “Gypsy,” “Peter Pan and “Call Me Madam), Harold Prince (whose directing credits include “Cabaret,” “Candide,” “Evita,” “Kiss of the Spider Woman,” “The Pajama Game” and “Phantom of the Opera”), Jerry Bock (music), Sheldon Harnick (lyrics) and Joseph Stein (book), Fiddler on the Roof JR. tackles the universal theme of tradition in ways that reach across barriers of race, class, nationality and religion.
The play is set in a colorful and tight-knit Jewish community in the little village of Anatevka in present-day Ukraine on the eve of the Russian Revolution. There, in 1905, all marriages are arranged through a matchmaker, Yente (JZoe George/Lyla Black), which Tzeitel (Izy Sedorchuk/Jaelynn Lias), Hodel (Hanna Sidwell/Kamila Sanchez) and Chava (Ella Alfaro-Maldonado/Mercy Newberry) acknowledge in the memorable number “Matchmaker, Matchmaker.”
While Hodel and Chava sing longingly for a “perfect match,” Tzeitel warns them that their intended could end up being a horrible match and they should not be so eager to be wed.
As it turns out, Tzeitel, Hodel, and Chava each break tradition in an increasingly radical fashion by choosing their own match.
Tzeitel chooses whom she wants to marry, instead of accepting the arrangement that has been made through Yente and asks for her father’s permission. The poor tailor, Motel, is a childhood friend of Tzeitel’s, and they promised each other to marry as soon as Motel had made enough money to be able to support them.
Where Tzeitel asks for and receives her father’s permission, Hodel simply informs Tevye of her self-made arrangement with Perchik (Alden Johnson), a teacher and revolutionary, and merely asks for her father’s blessing, which he reluctantly bestows.
Chava takes a step too far. Her betrothed is a non-Jew, which her father cannot countenance, declaring her to be dead to him and the entire family.
“Fiddler on the Roof JR." is a great introduction to the world of musical theatre. Young performers love its humor, warmth and honesty. Directors Kody Jones and Frank Brauer embrace the opportunity to direct a large cast with a good balance of male and female roles.
“We’ve gotten into a great place here at Arts Bonita,” Jones said. “I’ve been the resident director here for a while. We’re getting a lot of the same kids coming back. Retention is actually around 90 percent, which is great. The kids want to keep coming back to keep building their own work and training and pushing themselves.”
However, they continually enjoy an infusion of new students to replace the kids that age out of the youth program each year.
“We have a lot of kids graduating this year, so we’re getting that new group of kids in,” Jones noted. “There’s about 20 of them that are brand new, very young. We picked a junior show we could have more young kids in. This also gave them the chance to to watch some of our older, more advanced kids and learn from them, learn by example, while also giving those advanced kids new roles and things … different roles to challenge them and to find different techniques and ideas that they can train in in their own character development as we move forward in the process.”
Cassie Grossarth and Hannah Hansen play Tevye’s wife, Golde. A dutiful wife, Golde is weary, resigned, efficient and hopeful that their three daughters, Tzeitel, Hodel and Chava, will find good, prosperous husbands via the matchmaker. She’s shocked and appalled when her husband permits and blesses Tzeitel’s union with Motel and Hodel’s marriage to the teacher Perchik. She’s despondent over Tevye’s excommunication of Chava after she marries a non-Jew.
“In this time period [1905], women aren’t the head of the family,” observed Grossarth. “But I see her as very strong. She actually runs the family, in a way. It’s like a teamwork thing with her and Tevye, her husband.”
Grossarth is no stranger to “Fiddler on the Roof.” She played one of the daughters when she was much younger.
“So it’s kind of a really great full circle moment for me to play the mom,” Grossarth said. “I’ve always loved her character, and as I said, she’s a very strong character, which isn’t typically what I would play, like in the roles that I’m cast as, so like I’m getting the opportunity to do things that I haven’t been able to show before.”
In addition to “Fiddler,” Grossarth has been seen at Arts Bonita as the disciple Thomas in “Jesus Christ Superstar,” one of the workers in “Hadestown Teen Edition,” and in “Spring Awakening.” Other stage credits include “The Wedding Singer” at Cypress Lake High School, “Also, Maine,” and “Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat.”
Jack Pustizzi plays Motel the tailor. He is especially endearing with his hesitant determination to make his own decisions, instead of bowing to tradition. According to Pustizzi, he and his character have a number of traits in common.
“For starters, our mannerisms are similar,” Pustizzi conceded. “And at first, I’m a bit on the shier side, one could say, and definitely you see that in Motel. He’s a little skittish almost, a little scatterbrained as well, nervous, anxious.”
And with good reason.
“Tevye does not want Tzeitel to marry Motel,” Pustizzi pointed out. “But that is what Tzeitel wants. So you see a bit of arc in Motel’s character. He sort of has to work up the courage to stand up to Tevye in a way and tell him that he wants to marry his daughter, and will be good to her.”
Pustizzi sees a lot of parallels to modern-day antisemitism, global conflicts and minority groups looking for rights and human decency. Even though “Fiddler” is about a Jewish community that is being oppressed, there are so many other minorities that you could take social parallels from, and how do we push back and how do we be ourselves and be what we believe in?”
“But even though this show is about oppression and a minority group that is pushed out for their religion and their beliefs, there’s so much joy in this show,” Jones said. “It’s a great summer show to see with your friends and family because it also showcases the pride and the happiness and pure joy of being who you are. It shows that happiness and your own convictions and perseverance can overcome any oppression that may come your way.”
Support for WGCU’s arts & culture reporting comes from the Estate of Myra Janco Daniels, the Charles M. and Joan R. Taylor Foundation, and Naomi Bloom in loving memory of her husband, Ron Wallace.