Everyone has this story. There is a moment in our life when we are in the right place at the right time and we’re introduced to something that will not only change our lives but become a crucial part of our identity. For me, that has included the presence of musical theater that (up until 2020) was my home away from home. I’d buy tickets to the local theaters like Long Beach Playhouse or La Mirada Theater for the Performing Arts, and enjoy a night away from the world, taking in the spectacle of people joining forces to tell a story with vivid pageantry. For me, 2019 was my biggest year on record and 2020 was looking to be just as high.
But where does my story start? Why do I love musical theater so much? The truth is that I am somewhat of an outsider, never really fitting in with the theater kid persona. For me, I was with the creative arts, doing everything to publish a teenage version of the avant-garde. Sure I had seen West Side Story (1962) a ton of times, but to say that I had this need to make theater a regular part of my diet wasn’t as immediately apparent in my youth. I went to shows, but it never gave me an urgency to go back. I went because it was this curio.
If this story had a starting place, it was in 2008. I was a Senior at Millikan High School and every Spring they would put on a musical production. I am sure that I went to other musicals that they put on in the past, but I don’t have any memory of sitting there outside of previews that the schools were forced to attend.
The one preview I remember prior to 2008 was in 2007 for Rodgers & Hammerstein’s version of Cinderella. I wasn’t the same person then that I am now. The 17-year-old me would not rush out to see Cats (2019) on opening weekend because they were about to change the effects. I was probably more stubborn, not getting the point of flamboyance.
For me that Cinderella production has been so notorious in my memory that it’s the one Rodgers & Hammerstein show that I am reluctant to ever watch. I’ll sit through Flower Drum Song, State Fair, or even Sound of Music (which I don’t like all that much), but Cinderella is one of the few theater moments that qualify as a “hard pass.”
It’s in large part because the song featured, “The Prince is Giving a Ball,” was so appalling in its goofiness. Everything was too wacky, creating this vision of castle fantasy that I think looks tacky and dumb. Then there’s the fact that it was sung by this talented kid whose only flaw was that he had GRADUATED THE YEAR BEFORE. I was friends with one of the dancers in the show and she told me that nobody had any idea what they were doing.
Was this what theater actually was? I’ll just go back to being a square if I have to deal with songs that nobody could take seriously…
Then in 2008, they changed gears and did Fiddler on the Roof.
It was one of those formative experiences for me due to a variety of reasons. My sister was in the cast, at one point decked out in the Jewish man ensemble in order to perform the bottle dance sequence. I remember going with a friend and sitting in the front row, feeling like we could see her looking scared the entire time.
But because she was in the theater, I was often the errand boy. I would have to bring her dinner in the evening and take tabs so that everyone knew if she was doing okay. I cannot tell you anything about the rehearsal, though I have had the luck of standing backstage on a few occasions to see the ensemble gathered, ready to start the next number. As for my sister? She was crabby. All she wanted was dinner.
I suppose that is a big reason to want to see the show. Another is that the theater teacher was mythic at the school, able to bring out the best in all of her performers. I won’t share any personal stories for fear of getting them wrong, but what I can gather from everything I’ve heard is that she was a perfectionist. I saw that when I saw Fiddler on the Roof – even if these are teenagers playing middle-aged Hasidic men – and it’s something they frankly lost when the teacher left. I love their effort, but when I returned there to see Grease in recent years, I really missed the polished nature (or was it just that I didn’t know better?).
But this is a long way to say that I fell in love with Fiddler on the Roof, as specifically done by Millikan’s theater department of 2008. I couldn’t believe how this story that felt ancient and dusty could be so personal and humorous. It felt accessible in a way that I had never seen theater. Better yet, I began to understand the medium on a more personal level.
You can read about the theater all you want. You can buy a soundtrack and play it 100 times. But I guarantee that the best and worst of theater has to be experienced live. I am forgiving about people liking shows I disagree with because I do believe there is something to being in the room. There is an aura, and it helps that Fiddler on the Roof was built for a spectacle that in hindsight I didn’t know that a high school could pull off. Everything is so big and they had to use so many technical tricks to make it work. They weren’t pros. They were kids that I saw in English class, hung out with watching J-Horror, and saw were just like me. We all had our creative itch. Theirs was bringing Tevye’s story to life.
I think it helps that theater in a lot of ways felt accessible from this moment. I knew my sister was in the show. Our yearbook would have a dedication to the stage crew with the saying “We do it in the dark.” Even if I didn’t know all that they did, I could appreciate how this show was more than singing the dumbest songs that Rodgers & Hammerstein ever wrote. I have since taken joy in following local actors around to different gigs and enjoying when they pop up. While I love the potential of a professional production, I’m just as captivated by those working on a five-cent budget.
I think a key for me has always been able to look past the shortcomings. I knew that Tevya wasn’t in his 50’s. He was this kid from my A.P. English class, and while we were never friends I found myself amazed at what he brought to the role. He WAS Tevya. It wasn’t just the accent or his posturing. It was his ability to hit and sustain those high notes when he needed. We all agreed that he was incredibly talented. I still remember on the final day having the post-curtain call include him getting a college scholarship. You were proud of him because he really captured something in his character, and there was the sense that if only 5% of graduates had a big career ahead of them, he was on that list.
So how many times did I actually see this production of Fiddler on the Roof? I want to say four or five times. I just kept going back, whether it was for my own entertainment, to support my sister, or because I had friends who wanted to go. As you can guess the crowd gets rowdy when the lights go down, calling out their friends’ names and creates an atmosphere that I forget about every time I go to high school productions. I initially perceive it as rude, but then I accept a deeper truth: we’re all just ready for some theater.
There are just as many memories of being in the theater sitting with people as there are watching the show. While I can’t specify if I went to opening weekend, I did go enough to notice small changes, where the actors stumbled or perfected a line. By the final night, I even noticed how much the actors stopped caring and were having fun with the show. In one particular instance, someone goes to slam a door shut as they enter a room. It’s usually soft enough to shut, but in this case, it was still wide open. It wasn’t enough to take me out of the moment, but it was funny with a larger context.
It helps that Fiddler on the Roof has what I consider to be one of the irrefutable best songbooks of any Broadway musical I have seen before or since. While it’s not quite as perfect as My Fair Lady, it’s up there. You can hear the pathos in every note, the harmonies adding bittersweet touches to these songs that made you understand how much possibilities a show could have. It’s sad, it’s funny, and the opening number encapsulates so much about the identity that will be explored over the next few hours.
I don’t know if I understood the complexity to which a musical narrative could entail in 2008, but my expectations were reformed after the show. Simple things like having this symbolic fiddler play us in and out of the show, or have a wedding turn into a place of sadness and celebration. It was as much about identity as it was the fear of your kids growing up to marry dweebs. The asides gave us comedic insight into this man's life, and suddenly it wasn’t just a Jewish story. It was a human one, and it spoke to me.
Why did this make me fall in love with musical theater? I don’t honestly know if the reasons are personal, though I am as drawn to the small experiences of these events. It’s knowing that my friend who had been in the Cinderella production claimed that the theater teacher asked her personally if the show was “Jewish enough.” It’s all these things exclusive to a moment in time that will never be similar. You can capture it on video, but you’ll never get it unless you were there.
I suppose that is why one of my favorite memories of Fiddler on the Roof came from the preview. I had already seen the show at that point, so I knew what to expect when they chose to highlight the “If I Were a Rich Man” sequence. It was so much fun to see Tevya waving his hands and cackling like the geese. It was one of those undeniable highlights that every good performer could make their own, and I can’t say that this was any different…
Except that we’re dealing with teenagers in 2008. We were only a few years off from this Gwen Stefani song “Rich Girl,” which repurposed the chorus into a pop song. As a result, there was something enjoyable about the snickering when people realized that they knew a Fiddler on the Roof song. The only difference was that they knew more in relation to the hood to Japan and those Harajuku girls. I’d later realize that Stefani repurposed a lot of Broadway in her music, but for now it was a chance to see everyone laugh in shared confusion.
That was what gave me the musical theater bug, even if it would be a slow and gradual rollout from there. I started with the movie musicals before finding affordable local alternatives to keep me hooked. It’s only in recent years that websites like Today Tix and Lucky Seat have made going to high-end shows seem like more of a reality. Even then, they’re always fun and even the worst shows bring out something that I want to talk about with people.
I don’t know if I would be as passionate about theater without Fiddler on the Roof, or if I just wouldn’t like that show as much as I do. To be honest, few shows actually compare and I wonder if it’s all because of 2008. What would have been my first love if that moment never happened, or would I just see theater as something unobtainable or – worse yet – something goofy and unpleasant like Cinderella?
Sure, “Miracle of Miracles” is still a low point in the show, but the rest is perfect. I have been eager to see it again ever since, but things keep coming up. Who knows when the next time will be, but I wonder if it will recapture my affection or just make me think of 2008 and realize that I’ll always think this 18-year-old in a fake beard and probably bad Jewish accent set an unrealistic standard for what theater can be. I don’t know what the answer is, but I love trying to figure it out.
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