Young singers, dancers and actors with the School District No. 46 (SD46) Music Theatre Ensemble are about to launch their biggest production ever, Fiddler on the Roof.
The musical, one of the greatest hits in Broadway history, opens for a six-show, two-weekend run on Friday, Feb. 22 at the Chatelech Secondary School theatre. A total of 66 students make up the cast, backstage crew and small orchestra, all drawn from the Sunshine Coast’s three high schools and a few of the elementary schools.
“The kids have been learning the songs and the dances since the first week of September,” said Sara Douglas, the SD46 musical theatre teacher.
Last year’s Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat, with a cast of 39, had been the biggest production to date in the current theatre program’s four-year history. This is also the first year Douglas and music instructor Tom Kellough have put a band together for a show.
“We’ve always had Tom playing the piano,” Douglas said. “But this year we also have an accordion, a flute, a fiddler, a trumpet player, a trombone player and a double bass player. They have worked so hard and they sound phenomenal. It’s really exciting.”
The musical, with hit tunes like “If I Were a Rich Man,” “Matchmaker, Matchmaker,” and “Sunrise, Sunset,” tells the story of father Tevye, mother Golde and their five daughters, living in rural Russia at the beginning of the 20th century. Tevye is trying to marry off his daughters to men he finds acceptable, but the young women want to marry for love. Adding to the drama in the family and their village is the Russian authorities’ sinister treatment of the Jewish population.
Grade 12 student Jamie Douglas plays Tevye.
“In comparison to the shows that we’ve done in past years, this is much more emotional,” Douglas said. “The people in the village were very much oppressed and the way they deal with it is in a sort of sarcastic but easygoing way.”
Aslan Jordan-Knox, also in Grade 12, said she has come to admire her character, Golde. “She’s tough. She’s obviously been through a lot,” Jordan-Knox said. “But when it comes right down to it, she has a really deep care for her husband and her daughters and her village.”
Sara Douglas said she’s proud of the way the ensemble has come together.
“These kids are going to show the heart and the soul of this music and the story, because they’re really getting it,” she said. “They put everything into it, they give so much of themselves.”
Tickets are $10, available at Strait Music in Sechelt, Laedeli in Gibsons and Madeira Park IGA.
