"Fiddler on the Roof," a story of 20th-century Jewish culture, can be difficult for a middle school theater company to stage. After all, there's an entire history, religion and language to learn.
But the students in A. Mario Loiederman Middle School's performing arts magnet program took on the challenge for this weekend's production of "Fiddler on the Roof Jr." by researching Jewish folklore, taking dialogue training to pronounce Yiddish words correctly and designing the entire set based on the works of a 1900s Jewish painter, said Maurice Johnson, the play's director.
"These kids really took it and ran with it," Johnson said.
The fictional musical — the junior version is abridged for younger actors — is based upon a family living in a Jewish village during czarist Russia in 1905. The patriarch and main character is tasked with holding onto his ancient culture while his daughters demand for modernity in their marriages, amid the larger looming threat of the growing persecution of Jews in Europe.
Seventh-grader Erica Ferguson, who plays the character Golde, said this production is different than the school's usual spring plays.
"Most of our plays have been light and fun," she said.
Johnson agreed, saying he wanted to do a challenging musical that would show student how cultural discrimination still permeates life today.
"It's heavy material," he said.
But Johnson said he was also inspired to do the play by the works of Jewish painter Marc Chagall, who lived in the era in which the musical was set and painted scenes much like those of the Russian village where the play takes place. Johnson asked a crew of talented middle school students to recreate some of Chagall's works on giant tablets that will be wheeled around on stage as the background.
It was the first time Loiederman Middle School students had done most of the work for a background, and the result was one of the most impressive things he's seen in student musical theater, Johnson said.
Production manager Andrea Kibbe said the students took a rough sketch of the set and transformed it into a realistic Russian village — from painting, to shadowing, to displaying dimensions and meticulously mixing paint much like Chagall did to achieve the perfect pitch of color. They even built a ladder for the fiddler to climb to his roof.
Meanwhile, the cast of 40 or so spent time between rehearsals researching the history of Jewish culture. Members of local synagogues brought in traditional Jewish prayer cloths, and several parents volunteered to teach the actors how to pronounce words like "hoddl" or "model" in Yiddish.
Some students even had history of their own to share. Eighth-grader Jonny Perl and lead in the play said his grandfather rescued 40,000 Jews in World War II from Russia, sending them on ships to Palestine.
Perl said the mood of "Fiddler on the Roof" matches that of his grandfather's story.
"It's an intense story; it's a deep story," Perl said.
Johnson said all the challenges and extra work means the students—who are members of Loiederman's magnet for the Creative and Performing Arts—are being trained the way they should: as professionals in the business of musical theater.
"These kids have done everything," he said.
"Fiddler on the Roof Jr." will be showing
7 p.m. Friday, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at A. Mario Loiederman Middle School, 12701 Goodhill Road in Wheaton.
Tickets are $5 for students and seniors and $7 for adults. They can be ordered in advance by calling 301-929-2282 or purchased at the door.
