From April ’07 Spotlight: Anatevka bloomed anew last month in Munster, Indiana, during a delightful five-week run at the Theatre at the Center.
Once back home in Chicago, I called director Bill Pullinsi to follow-up on some of the details. I told Bill that, as a Fiddler on the Roof aficionado, I was delighted to see that he’d kept Yente’s number “The Rumor” in Act Two even though many productions eliminate it (as did the film version). “’The Rumor’ is a cute number that lightens things up a little bit,” Pullinsi agreed. “I’ve done Fiddler six times and I’ve never done the show without ‘The Rumor.’ The audience always likes it.”
Asked what made this Fiddler different from all other Fiddlers for him, Pullinsi described the staging: “Munster’s stage is a hybrid, it’s not completely in the round and it’s not completely a proscenium, it’s a thrust stage with a raked incline. We had to find ways to make the space accommodate the show.”
And so he did: with a relatively small cast working on a very small stage, Pullinsi’s Anatevka still felt three dimensional and densely-populated. Bravo!
To purchase tickets for future shows at the Theatre at the Center, visit:
http://www.theatreatthecenter.com/
Top Photo: “Why do we stay up there if it’s so dangerous?” Lee Pelty (as Tevye) with David Morrison (as The Fiddler).
Bottom Photo: “This one is mine and this one is mine…” Tevye counts his five daughters with Golde (Iris Lieberman) beaming at his right.
Photo credits: Greg Kolack