Talk:Fiddler on the Roof

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	Musical Theatre Portal Fiddler on the Roof is part of WikiProject Musical Theatre, organized to improve and complete musical theatre articles and coverage on Wikipedia. You can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks.
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WikiProject Musical Theatre tasks: Help out with one of the WikiProject Musical Theatre tasks below. You may add your name to the Participants list to the right. edit this Open Tasks template Collaborate and work on the Collaboration of the Month Articles needing a content fork Mainly, these are articles on films and either their source or subsequent musicals. There are a couple where the musical needs to be "forked" from the source material. Feel free to add or remove as necessary. Important: If you split an article, please make sure that you move all the relevant links from the first article to the new one. To find which links to move, click on "What links here" at the old article and look through the list to see which links should be pointed to the film related link (for example, articles on actors in the film). Then, click on those links and update them to point to the film article. Thanks! Don't Play Us Cheap Roberta How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying I Married an Angel Lady in the Dark The Band Wagon - musical adaptation will to be forked after it opens in April.

Any info out there of the possibility of a sequel to Fiddler on the Roof? On the one hand, why mess with perfection? On the other hand, it's a natural - Tevye in America! Ellis Island! The Lower East Side! The Russian revolution! The depression! World Wars I and II!! It's had to have occurred to somebody. But a Google search didn't yield much. If somebody knows one way or the other, it'd make a good entry.

Contents 1 arranger-conductor 2 Doesn't add up 3 Ack! 4 Fiddler in Duluth 5 Film vs Broadway 6 Relation to... section 7 Tevye and his Daughters published when? 8 Russian or Ukrainian? 9 Relation to Sholom Aleichem's Tevye 10 Film locale: Mala? 11 Tsar, Tzar, or Czar? 12 Sammy Kirschbaum?!? 13 Regarding keeping the film page separate 14 duration of the revivals

[edit] arranger-conductor

what is a arranger-conductor (as john williams was in this piece)? thanks, --Abdull 19:09, 4 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Doesn't add up

The article states that Fiddler held the "record for longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until Grease surpassed its run." But that doesn't make sense... Fiddler opened in 1964 and Grease opened in 1982... so it must've held the record for more than 10 years. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Simenzo (talk • contribs) 02:50, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

No, Grease opened in 1972. -- Ssilvers (talk) 03:32, 25 January 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Ack!

Will somebody please edit the summary? It's making me queasy. Use of "I" all over the place, punctuation and capitalization issues, improper encyclopedic style, mammoth size...it's gotta change. Anybody wanna help here? IvanP 14:42, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Fiddler in Duluth

Dr Speedbump's Attention Deficit Compan did a sequel: Fiddler in Duluth. You can find the entire book (actually, it's a page) here: [1] -- 21:10, 28 August 2005 (UTC)Vince

[edit] Film vs Broadway

This article seems to be written about the stage production; but the list of numbers is from the film. Notably, the title number is absent; also, When Messiah Comes. Here is a list of numbers from a "deluxe" edition:

1. Prologue - Tradition

2. Matchmaker

3. If I Were a Rich Man

4. Sabbath Prayer

5. To Life

6. Miracle of Miracles

7. Dream

8. Sunrise, Sunset

9. Wedding Dance

10. Now I Have Everything

11. Do You Love Me?

12. Rumor

13. Far From the Home I Love

14. Anatevka

15. "Along the Way We Dropped a Number of Songs..." [*] - Sheldon Harnick

16. When Messiah Comes [*] - Sheldon Harnick

17. "Here's a Song That Was to Have Been in Fiddler..." [*] - Sheldon Harnick

18. How Much Richer Could One Man Be? [*] - Sheldon Harnick

19. "It's Very Seldom That Jerry Bock and I Have Written for Stars..." [*] - Sheldon Harnick

20. If I Were a Rich Man [*] - Sheldon Harnick, Richard Leonard

21. If I Were a Rich Man [*] - Sheldon Harnick

22. Recording Session [*] - Sheldon Harnick

23. Zero [*] - Sheldon Harnick

24. Where the Dancing Girls Went [*] - Sheldon Harnick

25. Musical With a Sad Ending [*] - Sheldon Harnick

26. Appeal of the Show [*] - Sheldon Harnick

27. "Do You Love Me?" [*] - Sheldon Harnick

28. Sunrise, Sunset [*] - Sheldon Harnick

It's clear that much of this is filler, incidental, and duplicate; but you can see why I think the list we have is a little short. Oddly enough, this "deluxe" edition also omits the title number.

The more I dig into this question of the title number, the stranger my exploration. In the film the opening number is Tradition. The Fiddler on the Roof theme is heard at beginning and end and throughout the film, but Topol never sings. I clearly remember hearing Zero Mostel sing the lyrics; but as I look, the various cast recordings also omit the title number. Was I dreaming?

This site has the lyrics:

ARTIST: Bock and Harnick

TITLE: Fiddler on the Roof

Lyrics and Chords

Away above my head I see the strangest sight

A fiddler on the roof who's up there day and night

He fiddles when it rains, he fiddles when it snows

I've never seen him rest, yet on and on he goes

/ A - - - Bb - A - / - - - - Bb CBb A - / :

{Refrain}

What does it mean, this fiddler on the roof

Who fiddles every night and fiddles every noon

Why should he pick so curious a place

To play his little fiddler's tune

An unexpected breeze could blow him to the ground

Yet after every storm, I see he's still around

Whatever each day brings, this odd outlandish man

He plays his simple tune as sweetly as he can

{Refrain}

A fiddler on the roof, a most unlikely sight

It might not mean a thing, but then again it might!

Please don't ask me to explain this. John Reid 17:48, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

   The deluxe edition you quote quite clearly has additional tracks that do not belong in the musical. From the list you give I would regard anything pas 15 "along the way we dropped a couple of songs" as being bonus tracks and not part of the original show. Personal experience (not allowable in the article, but here is discussion...) is that there is no song IN THE SHOW called "fiddler on the roof"... I have been invovled in 

two productions and this appeared in neither script. NODA gives a list of the musical numbers on this page and interestingly this does not include the number Yente listed in act 2 of the list on the main article. Nor does the plot summary indicate where this song comes in. Should this one be removed? Tsoram 11:31, 11 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Relation to... section

I put the sect-stub template on it because it just seems to be an aside that doesn't really fit into the flow of the article. It needs to be expanded or just plain removed. 66.236.0.11 21:55, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tevye and his Daughters published when?

"The story is based on Tevye and his Daughters, or Tevye the Milkman by the Russian Jewish author Sholom Aleichem, originally published in 1949." The article says it was published in 1949, but Sholom Aleichem died in 1916 and the article "Tevye" says it was published in 1894. I did a google search and found websites with conflicting information. Was it published posthumously? --Dandin1 22:26, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I didn't write any of the relevant passages, but I'm quite certain that the "Tevye" stories were by no means posthumous, and that they were established classics of Yiddish fiction long before 1949. 1949 might be a date of an English translation. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:50, 30 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Russian or Ukrainian?

Where was Anatevka? Russia, or Ukraine?

Most references I've found on the internet to "Fiddler on the Roof" refer to Anatevka as being Ukranian, but this Wiki article refers to it as being Russian. Of course, politically, it may have made litte difference in tsarist times (or in later Soviet times for that matter), but I ask in the interests of accuracy.

I found nothing in the movie or play to absolutely confirm the location of Anatevka. One small clue is that Perchick was from Kiev, and had returned there to pursue his revolutionary activities when he was arrested. That doesn't prove one way or the other exactly where the village was, but I had always assumed it was in Ukraine, until I read this Wiki article. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by ViolinProdigy (talk • contribs) 10 June 2006.

(Very non-definitive, subjective response follows.) Probably Ukraine makes more sense. Jews in the period didn't really tend to particularly make the distinction of Ukraine vs. Russia: it was all in Imperial Russia, and insofar as Jews assimilated, from what I can tell they were a lot more likely to assimilate to things Russian than to things specifically Ukrainian. This makes a certain sense: Ukrainian nationalism of the period was an ethnic nationalism, but Russian identity was an imperial identity, and Jews could hope for somehow being included in that. - Jmabel | Talk 05:53, 22 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Relation to Sholom Aleichem's Tevye

After we cite Yuri Slezkine that in the original book Tevye actually despises the United States, we then say, "However in a later book, Adventures of Motel the Cantor's Son, Aleichem expressed great admiration for the United States, and enthusiasm for the idea of immigrating there. He had chosen that path himself, and so it might be possible to argue that his character Tevye would have, too." I don't see how that is a "however" or why we should project the author's own views onto a character who, while certainly a protagonist, is not an author surrogate. - Jmabel | Talk 06:06, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Film locale: Mala?

The article mentions a place "Mala" in Croatia. I'm wondering where this might mean. There are many places in Croatia with "Mala" in their names; I don't know Croatian, but it's Slavic, and I imagine it means "small". - Jmabel | Talk 06:21, 2 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Tsar, Tzar, or Czar?

Shouldn't there be just one version of the word? I saw both Tsar and Tzar. By the way, is Tzar even a word? I was under the impression that it was just Tsar or Czar. Anyways, that's all I have to say. 68.1.98.64 20:13, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

Tzar exists, but is uncommon, and increasingly so. Ditto Csar. Tsar is the most common for the literal use, as here. Czar is most common for the metaphorical use (e.g. "Drug Czar"). - Jmabel | Talk 06:50, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sammy Kirschbaum?!?

What's up with that line in the opening paragraph about Sammy Kirschbaum? First of all, who is that and why is that line even there? I tried to edit it out but it doesn't appear in the editing window.169.244.150.77 15:39, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

EDIT- Nevermind, the line was removed. Very weird...

Vanity/spam. That sort of thing tends to be deleted pretty rapidly. - Jmabel | Talk 01:43, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding keeping the film page separate

I vote that the film page be kept separate from this general page. It seems to be the Wikipedia standard to have separate pages for film adaptations, and I vote we do the same here. Daniel J. Mount 01:03, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I would agree that the splitters almost always win out against the lumpers. I would not necessarily agree that is a good thing. - Jmabel | Talk 19:06, 13 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] duration of the revivals

I don't know how to translate the number of shows into the duration of the revivals. If I knew for what time the musical was shown, then I'd get an idea, how soon it was revived. Thanks, JanCK 17:14, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

B'way and West End shows do about 415 performances per year. -- Ssilvers 18:00, 20 September 2007 (UTC)