ROCK SPRINGS – The Sweetwater BOCES Summer Theatre for Youth will present their production of Fiddler on the Roof Jr next week. The fully produced performance will take the WWCC Theatre stage July 25 and 26 at 7 PM. Admission is free, but tickets are required and may be obtained at the door starting at 6:30 PM.
This special adaptation of the nine-time Tony Award-winning Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof JR. follows Tevye the milkman as he tries to protect his family and his way of life from a changing world. Set in the little village of Anatevka, and with the help of a colorful and tight-knit Jewish community, Tevye attempts to marry off his daughters one by one, in the face of growing anti-Semitism in Czarist Russia. Created by Broadway legends Jerome Robbins, Harold Prince, Jerry Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein, Fiddler on the Roof JR. tackles the universal theme of tradition in ways that reach across barriers of race, class, nationality and religion.
The Sweetwater BOCES Summer Theatre for Youth program features 40 local young adults from ages 8 to 18 under the direction of WWCC Performing Arts Professors Chris Will and Eric de Lora. Both Will and de Lora bring extensive experience working in musical theatre to the program, and are mentoring ten Western Wyoming Community College musical theatre and technical theatre students who have opportunities to assist in stage direction, music direction, choreography, set design, costume design and light design as well as teach the young performers on a daily basis.
“We wanted to make certain we created opportunities for the Western students to explore theatre education experiences with the young performers,” said de Lora. “Of course we want all the students to have fun but we also want the younger students to learn from older student mentors, and maybe one or more of them will want to pursue a career in arts education, even to the point of taking one of our places as a college instructor someday.”
This production is appropriate for audience members of all ages. For more information, contact the Sweetwater BOCES Office at (307) 382-1607.