Musical theatre is a form of theatrical performance that combines songs, spoken dialogue , acting and dance. The story and emotional content of a musical – humor, pathos , love, anger – are communicated through words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with other theatrical forms like opera and dance, it may be distinguished by the equal importance given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called, simply, musicals .
210-673: Fiddler on the Roof is a musical with music by Jerry Bock , lyrics by Sheldon Harnick , and book by Joseph Stein , set in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia in or around 1905. It is based on Tevye and his Daughters (or Tevye the Dairyman ) and other tales by Sholem Aleichem . The story centers on Tevye , a milkman in the village of Anatevka, who attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon his family's lives. He must cope with
420-422: A hungover Tevye announces that he has agreed that Tzeitel will marry Lazar Wolf. Golde is overjoyed, but Tzeitel is devastated and begs Tevye not to force her. Motel arrives and tells Tevye that he is the perfect match for Tzeitel and that he and Tzeitel gave each other a pledge to marry. He promises that Tzeitel will not starve as his wife. Tevye is stunned and outraged at this breach of tradition, but impressed at
630-611: A "recurring trademark", including at the Drum Corps International World Championships . Musical theatre Although music has been a part of dramatic presentations since ancient times, modern Western musical theatre emerged during the 19th century, with many structural elements established by the light opera works of Jacques Offenbach in France, Gilbert and Sullivan in Britain and
840-565: A Little Christmas", "I Am What I Am", "Mame", "The Best of Times", "Before the Parade Passes By", "Put On Your Sunday Clothes", "It Only Takes a Moment", "Bosom Buddies" and "I Won't Send Roses", recorded by such artists as Louis Armstrong , Eydie Gormé , Barbra Streisand , Petula Clark and Bernadette Peters. Herman's songbook has been the subject of two popular musical revues, Jerry's Girls (Broadway, 1985) and Showtune (off-Broadway, 2003). The musical started to diverge from
1050-622: A Rich Man" in which he kicks several chickens off the roof. "The Rosie Show", a 1996 episode of The Nanny , parodied the dream scene, when Mr. Sheffield fakes a dream to convince Fran not to be a regular on a TV show. A 2011 episode of NBC's Community , entitled "Competitive Wine Tasting", included a parody titled Fiddla, Please! with an all-black cast dressed in Fiddler on the Roof costumes, singing "It's Hard to Be Jewish in Russia, Yo". Chabad.org kicked off their 2008 "To Life" telethon with
1260-409: A Stranger , actor Gene Wilder describes being initially terrified of Mostel. However, just after being introduced, Mostel got up, walked over to Wilder, hugged him, and planted a big kiss on his lips. Wilder claims to be grateful to Mostel for teaching him such a valuable lesson, and for picking Wilder up every day so that they could ride to work together. He also tells the story of a dinner celebrating
1470-455: A Tony Award for Best Actor in a Musical for this role). A film version was produced in 1966, also starring Mostel – and Silvers. On September 22, 1964, Mostel opened as Tevye in the original Broadway production of Fiddler on the Roof . Because of Mostel's respect for the works of Sholem Aleichem he insisted that more of the author's mood and style be incorporated into the musical, and he made major contributions to its shape. He also created
1680-579: A book musical are its music , lyrics and book . The book or script of a musical refers to the story, character development and dramatic structure, including the spoken dialogue and stage directions, but it can also refer to the dialogue and lyrics together, which are sometimes referred to as the libretto (Italian for "small book"). The music and lyrics together form the score of a musical and include songs, incidental music and musical scenes, which are "theatrical sequence[s] set to music, often combining song with spoken dialogue." The interpretation of
1890-482: A butterfly at rest brought any money into the coffers of the Communist Party, you contributed directly to the propaganda effort of the Communist Party. MR. MOSTEL: Suppose I had the urge to do the butterfly at rest somewhere. MR. DOYLE : Yes, but please, when you have the urge, don't have such an urge to put the butterfly at rest by putting money in the Communist Party coffers as a result of that urge to put
2100-523: A child, he earned the nickname "Zero" from his classmates to match his poor grades. He kept the moniker when he went into show business, though his mother hated it. Initially living in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn, the family moved to Moodus, Connecticut , where they bought a farm. The family's income in those days came from a winery and a slaughterhouse. The farm failed, and the family moved back to New York , where his father obtained work as
2310-518: A completely new genre – the musical play as distinguished from musical comedy. Now ... everything else was subservient to that play. Now ... came complete integration of song, humor and production numbers into a single and inextricable artistic entity." As the Great Depression set in during the post-Broadway national tour of Show Boat , the public turned back to mostly light, escapist song-and-dance entertainment. Audiences on both sides of
SECTION 10
#17327834770422520-520: A few exceptions, compared with London runs, until the 1920s. Gilbert and Sullivan were widely pirated and also were imitated in New York by productions such as Reginald De Koven 's Robin Hood (1891) and John Philip Sousa 's El Capitan (1896). A Trip to Coontown (1898) was the first musical comedy entirely produced and performed by African Americans on Broadway (largely inspired by the routines of
2730-402: A few players . Rock musicals usually employ a small group of mostly rock instruments, and some musicals may call for only a piano or two instruments. The music in musicals uses a range of "styles and influences including operetta , classical techniques, folk music , jazz [and] local or historical styles [that] are appropriate to the setting." Musicals may begin with an overture played by
2940-641: A five-minute song than are spoken in a five-minute block of dialogue. Therefore, there is less time to develop drama in a musical than in a straight play of equivalent length, since a musical usually devotes more time to music than to dialogue. Within the compressed nature of a musical, the writers must develop the characters and the plot. The material presented in a musical may be original, or it may be adapted from novels ( Wicked and Man of La Mancha ), plays ( Hello, Dolly! and Carousel ), classic legends ( Camelot ), historical events ( Evita and Hamilton ) or films ( The Producers and Billy Elliot ). On
3150-540: A gala celebration and reunion was held at the Town Hall in New York City to benefit National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene , with appearances by many of the cast members of the various Broadway productions and the 1971 film, as well as Sheldon Harnick, Chita Rivera , Karen Ziemba , Joshua Bell , Jerry Zaks and others. The fifth Broadway revival began previews on November 20 and opened on December 20, 2015, at
3360-511: A limited run (53 performances) at Lincoln Center 's New York State Theater . It starred Herschel Bernardi as Tevye and Karnilova as Golde. Other cast members included Liz Larsen , Fyvush Finkel , Lawrence Leritz and Paul Lipson . Robbins directed and choreographed. The third Broadway revival opened on November 18, 1990, and ran for 241 performances at the George Gershwin Theatre . Topol starred as Tevye, and Marcia Lewis
3570-517: A love relationship sanctioned and restricted by Protestant ideals of marriage; that a married couple should make a moral home with children away from the city in a suburb or small town; that the woman's function was as homemaker and mother; and that Americans incorporate an independent and pioneering spirit or that their success is self-made. The 1950s were crucial to the development of the American musical. Damon Runyon 's eclectic characters were at
3780-610: A modest fellow about those things. I contribute a great deal. And they always manage to hang you for having an interpretation. Isn't [the theater] where your imagination should flower? Why must it always be dull as shit? Other producers, such as Jerome Robbins and Hal Prince , preferred to hire Mostel on short contracts, knowing that he would become less faithful to the script as time went on. His exuberant personality, though largely responsible for his success, had also intimidated others in his profession and prevented him from receiving some important roles. In his autobiography Kiss Me Like
3990-510: A musical adaptation of Oscar Wilde 's 1895 hit The Importance of Being Earnest . West Side Story (1957) transported Romeo and Juliet to modern day New York City and converted the feuding Montague and Capulet families into opposing ethnic gangs, the Jets and the Sharks. The book was adapted by Arthur Laurents , with music by Leonard Bernstein and lyrics by newcomer Stephen Sondheim . It
4200-416: A musical generally became more expensive. Shuffle Along (1921), an all-African American show, was a hit on Broadway. A new generation of composers of operettas also emerged in the 1920s, such as Rudolf Friml and Sigmund Romberg , to create a series of popular Broadway hits. In London, writer-stars such as Ivor Novello and Noël Coward became popular, but the primacy of British musical theatre from
4410-497: A musical is the responsibility of its creative team, which includes a director, a musical director, usually a choreographer and sometimes an orchestrator . A musical's production is also creatively characterized by technical aspects, such as set design , costumes , stage properties (props) , lighting and sound . The creative team, designs and interpretations generally change from the original production to succeeding productions. Some production elements, however, may be retained from
SECTION 20
#17327834770424620-467: A musical style more aptly suited to twentieth-century society and its vernacular idiom. It was from America that the more direct style emerged, and in America that it was able to flourish in a developing society less hidebound by nineteenth-century tradition." In France, comédie musicale was written between in the early decades of the century for such stars as Yvonne Printemps . Progressing far beyond
4830-461: A musical theatre and album parody called A Shoggoth on the Roof , which sets music from Fiddler to a story based on the works of H. P. Lovecraft . Spanish comedian and TV-host Jose Mota parodied "If I Were a Rich Man" with the song "Si no fuera rico" ("If I weren't a rich man") during his 2008 New Year's Eve special. References to the musical on television have included a 2005 episode of Gilmore Girls titled "Jews and Chinese Food", involving
5040-547: A new Broadway record. In Britain, Me and My Girl ran for 1,646 performances. Still, a few creative teams began to build on Show Boat ' s innovations. Of Thee I Sing (1931), a political satire by the Gershwins, was the first musical awarded the Pulitzer Prize . As Thousands Cheer (1933), a revue by Irving Berlin and Moss Hart in which each song or sketch was based on a newspaper headline, marked
5250-413: A number of blockbusters, like Fiddler on the Roof (1964; 3,242 performances), Hello, Dolly! (1964; 2,844 performances), Funny Girl (1964; 1,348 performances) and Man of La Mancha (1965; 2,328 performances), and some more risqué pieces like Cabaret , before ending with the emergence of the rock musical . In Britain, Oliver! (1960) ran for 2,618 performances, but the long-run champion of
5460-427: A pastiche of the fiddle solo and bottle dance from the musical. Broadway references have included Spamalot , where a "Grail dance" sends up the "bottle dance" in Fiddler ' s wedding scene. In 2001, Chicago's Improv Olympic produced a well-received parody, "The Roof Is on Fiddler", that used most of the original book of the musical but replaced the songs with 1980s pop songs. In 2004 the original Broadway cast of
5670-456: A performance that was even more astonishing than Olivier's". Mostel received the Obie award for best Off Broadway performance of the 1958–59 season. After the success of Ulysses , Mostel received many offers to appear in classic roles, especially abroad; however, he declined the offers because of artistic differences with the directors and the low salaries associated with the roles. By that time
5880-499: A popular choice for school and community productions. Fiddler on the Roof is based on Tevye (or Tevye the Dairyman ) and his Daughters , a series of stories by Sholem Aleichem that he wrote in Yiddish between 1894 and 1914 about Jewish life in a village in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia at the turn of the 20th century. The stories are based on Aleichem's own upbringing near Kyiv (fictionalized as Yehupetz ). It
6090-516: A production of the musical. A skit by The Electric Company is about a village fiddler with a fear of heights, so he is deemed "Fiddler on the Chair". In the Family Guy episode " When You Wish Upon a Weinstein " (2003), William Shatner is depicted as playing Tevye in a scene from Fiddler . The second episode of Muppets Tonight , in 1996, featured Garth Brooks doing a piece of "If I were
6300-700: A record at the time. Mostel received a Tony Award for it and was invited to a reception in the White House , officially ending his status as a political pariah. Mostel in 1967 appeared as Potemkin in Great Catherine . He was due to co-star with Julie Newmar in Monsieur Lecoq filmed in France and the U.K., but the film was never completed. In the same year he took the role of Max Bialystock in The Producers . Mostel refused to accept
6510-473: A reimagined version of Shakespeare's Shylock ) in Philadelphia , he collapsed in his dressing room and was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital . He was diagnosed with a respiratory disorder; it was believed he was in no danger and would be released soon. However, on September 8, 1977, Mostel complained of dizziness and lost consciousness. The attending physicians were unable to revive him, and he
Fiddler on the Roof - Misplaced Pages Continue
6720-521: A river ... with lots of obstacles and mishaps along the way". As transportation improved, poverty in London and New York diminished, and street lighting made for safer travel at night, the number of patrons for the growing number of theatres increased enormously. Plays ran longer, leading to better profits and improved production values, and men began to bring their families to the theatre. The first musical theatre piece to exceed 500 consecutive performances
6930-497: A run of 931 performances. Gilbert and Sullivan's influence on later musical theatre was profound, creating examples of how to "integrate" musicals so that the lyrics and dialogue advanced a coherent story. Their works were admired and copied by early authors and composers of musicals in Britain and America. A Trip to Chinatown (1891) was Broadway's long-run champion (until Irene in 1919), running for 657 performances, but New York runs continued to be relatively short, with
7140-544: A series of 2.5D musicals based on popular anime and manga comics has developed in recent decades. Shorter or simplified "junior" versions of many musicals are available for schools and youth groups, and very short works created or adapted for performance by children are sometimes called minimusicals . The antecedents of musical theatre in Europe can be traced back to the theatre of ancient Greece , where music and dance were included in stage comedies and tragedies during
7350-547: A series of successful Broadway shows, including On Your Toes (1936, with Ray Bolger , the first Broadway musical to make dramatic use of classical dance), Babes in Arms (1937) and The Boys from Syracuse (1938). Porter added Du Barry Was a Lady (1939). The longest-running piece of musical theatre of the 1930s in the US was Hellzapoppin (1938), a revue with audience participation, which played for 1,404 performances, setting
7560-569: A similarity to Mostel's own, and for which he was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor). Screenwriter Walter Bernstein loosely based the character of Hecky Brown on television actor Philip Loeb , who was a friend of Mostel. On Broadway, he starred in revivals of Ulysses in Nighttown (receiving a Tony nomination for Best Actor) and Fiddler on the Roof . He also made memorable appearances in children's shows such as Sesame Street , The Electric Company (for which he performed
7770-789: A story-telling device in On Your Toes in 1936, which was followed by Agnes de Mille 's ballet and choreography in Oklahoma! . After Abbott collaborated with Jerome Robbins in On the Town and other shows, Robbins combined the roles of director and choreographer, emphasizing the story-telling power of dance in West Side Story , A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962) and Fiddler on
7980-504: A thing of legend; he won his first Tony Award for Best Actor, even though he was not in the lead role. In 1962 Mostel began work on the role of Pseudolus in the Broadway musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum , which was to be one of his best-remembered roles. The role of Pseudolus was originally offered to Phil Silvers , who declined it, saying he did not want to do this "old shtick". Mostel did not originally want to do
8190-483: A velvet suit. Zero had a favorite painting, John White Alexander 's Study in Black and Green , which he copied every day, to the delight of the gallery crowds. One afternoon, while a crowd was watching over his velvet-clad shoulder, he solemnly copied the whole painting upside down, delighting his audience. In addition to English, Zero Mostel spoke Yiddish , Italian, and German. He attended Public School 188, where he
8400-513: A wife. The family gathers for the "Sabbath Prayer". After the Sabbath, Tevye meets Lazar for a drink at the village inn, assuming mistakenly that Lazar wants to buy his cow. Once the misunderstanding is cleared up, Tevye agrees to let Lazar marry Tzeitel – with a rich butcher, his daughter will never want for anything. All join in the celebration of Lazar's good fortune; even the Russian youths at
8610-483: A wine chemist. Zero was described by his family as outgoing and lively, and with a developed sense of humor. He showed an intelligence and perception which convinced his father he had the makings of a rabbi , but Zero preferred painting and drawing, a passion he retained for life. According to Roger Butterfield, Zero's mother sent him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to copy paintings while dressed in
Fiddler on the Roof - Misplaced Pages Continue
8820-616: A year to find work. He then joined the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP), which paid him a stipend to teach art. In 1939, he married Clara Sverd, and the couple moved to an apartment in Brooklyn. The marriage did not last, however, since Clara could not accept the many hours Mostel spent in his studio with his fellow artists, and he did not seem to be able to provide for her at the level to which she had been accustomed. They separated in 1941 and divorced in 1944, Clara only agreeing to
9030-650: Is also influenced by Life is with People , by Mark Zborowski and Elizabeth Herzog. Aleichem wrote a dramatic adaptation of the stories that he left unfinished at his death, but which was produced in Yiddish in 1919 by the Yiddish Art Theater and made into a film in the 1930s. In the late 1950s, a musical based on the stories, called Tevye and his Daughters , was produced off-Broadway by Arnold Perl . Rodgers and Hammerstein and then Mike Todd briefly considered bringing this musical to Broadway but dropped
9240-548: Is determined to join him there. At the railway station, she explains to her father that her home is with her beloved, wherever he may be, although she will always love her family ("Far From the Home I Love"). Time passes. Motel has purchased a used sewing machine, and he and Tzeitel have had a baby. Chava finally gathers the courage to ask Tevye to allow her marriage to Fyedka. Again Tevye reaches deep into his soul, but marriage outside
9450-451: Is frequently longer than the second. The first act generally introduces nearly all of the characters and most of the music and often ends with the introduction of a dramatic conflict or plot complication while the second act may introduce a few new songs but usually contains reprises of important musical themes and resolves the conflict or complication. A book musical is usually built around four to six main theme tunes that are reprised later in
9660-401: Is leaving. When he forbids the marriage, Perchik and Hodel inform him that they do not seek his permission, only his blessing. After more soul searching, Tevye relents – the world is changing, and he must change with it ("Tevye's Rebuttal"). He informs the young couple that he gives them his blessing and his permission. Tevye explains these events to an astonished Golde. "Love", he says, "it's
9870-477: Is often difficult to distinguish among the various kinds of musical theatre, including "musical play", "musical comedy", "operetta" and "light opera". Like opera, the singing in musical theatre is generally accompanied by an instrumental ensemble called a pit orchestra , located in a lowered area in front of the stage. While opera typically uses a conventional symphony orchestra , musicals are generally orchestrated for ensembles ranging from 27 players down to only
10080-464: Is primarily a singer and only secondarily an actor (and rarely needs to dance), a musical theatre performer is often an actor first but must also be a singer and dancer. Someone who is equally accomplished at all three is referred to as a "triple threat". Composers of music for musicals often consider the vocal demands of roles with musical theatre performers in mind. Today, large theatres that stage musicals generally use microphones and amplification of
10290-537: Is the clear first choice among recordings of this musical, he also likes the Columbia Records studio cast album with Bernardi as Tevye; the film soundtrack, although he feels that the pace drags a bit; and some of the numerous foreign versions, including the Israeli, German and Japanese casts. As of 2020, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and producers Dan Jinks and Aaron Harnick were planning a new film adaptation of
10500-582: The Billboard Hot 100 chart, where it remained for over six months. It was certified gold by the RIAA and nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Rap/Sung Collaboration . It was also covered in 2008 and 2009 by the Capitol Steps , poking fun at Illinois politics, especially then-Governor Rod Blagojevich . The Santa Clara Vanguard Drum and Bugle Corps performs the "Bottle Dance" from Fiddler as
10710-672: The Chicago Sun-Times , wrote in 2000, "This is one of the funniest movies ever made", adding that Mostel's performance "is a masterpiece of low comedy." He lived in a large rented apartment in The Belnord on the Upper West Side of Manhattan and built a summer house on Monhegan Island in Maine. In his last decade, Mostel's star dimmed as he appeared in movies that were received with indifference by both critics and
SECTION 50
#173278347704210920-677: The Australian Opera in 1984 with Gordon again playing Tevye. A young Anthony Warlow played Fyedka. In 1998, 2005, 2006 and 2007, Topol recreated his role as Tevye in Australian productions, with seasons in Sydney, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth, Wellington and Auckland. The musical was again revived in Melbourne and Sydney in 2015–2016 with Anthony Warlow as Tevye, Sigrid Thornton as Golde and Lior as Motel. Topol in 'Fiddler on
11130-494: The Broadway Theatre , with concept and choreography based on the original by Robbins. Bartlett Sher directed, and Hofesh Shechter choreographed. The cast starred Danny Burstein as Tevye, with Jessica Hecht as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Tzeitel, Adam Kantor as Motel, Ben Rappaport as Perchik, Samantha Massell as Hodel and Melanie Moore as Chava. Judy Kuhn replaced Hecht as Golde on November 22, 2016, for
11340-580: The Cameri Theatre in Tel Aviv for more than six years. It was directed by Moshe Kepten, choreographed by Dennis Courtney and starred Natan Datner. Un violon sur le toît was produced in French at Paris's théâtre Marigny from November 1969 to May 1970, resuming from September to January 1971 (a total of 292 performances) with Ivan Rebroff as Tevye and Maria Murano as Golde. Another adaptation
11550-535: The House Un-American Activities Committee and hid his Jewish heritage from the public. (Mostel, conversely, was admired for his confrontational testimony before the committee that led to his blacklisting in the 1950s.) Other cast members also had run-ins with Robbins, who reportedly "abused the cast, drove the designers crazy [and] strained the good nature of Hal Prince". Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman with five daughters, explains
11760-776: The London Palladium for two months and then on tour, again starring Topol, and directed and choreographed by Sammy Dallas Bayes, recreating the Robbins production. After a two-month tryout at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield , England, a London revival opened on May 19, 2007, at the Savoy Theatre starring Henry Goodman as Tevye, Beverley Klein as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Hodel, Damian Humbley as Perchik and Victor McGuire as Lazar Wolf. The production
11970-622: The Metropolitan Opera , Mostel carried a cane to go along with the cape that he also favored. Later in the year Mostel took on the role of Estragon in a TV adaptation of Waiting for Godot . In 1961, he played Jean in Rhinoceros to very favorable reviews. The New Republic 's Robert Brustein said that he had "a great dancer's control of movement, a great actor's control of voice, a great mime's control of facial expressions." His transition onstage from man to rhinoceros became
12180-482: The Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City, under the direction of Joel Grey , with a translation by Shraga Friedman that was first used in a 1965 Israeli production. The cast included Jackie Hoffman as Yente, Steven Skybell as Tevye, Daniel Kahn as Pertshik, Stephanie Lynne Mason as Hodel and Raquel Nobile as Shprintze. Previews began on July 4, and opening night was July 15, 2018. The production played through
12390-640: The Roaring Twenties , borrowing from vaudeville, music hall and other light entertainments, tended to emphasize big dance routines and popular songs at the expense of plot. Typical of the decade were lighthearted productions like Sally ; Lady, Be Good ; No, No, Nanette ; Oh, Kay! ; and Funny Face . Despite forgettable stories, these musicals featured stars such as Marilyn Miller and Fred Astaire and produced dozens of enduring popular songs by Kern, George and Ira Gershwin , Irving Berlin , Cole Porter and Rodgers and Hart . Popular music
12600-491: The Tudor period that involved music, dancing, singing and acting, often with expensive costumes and a complex stage design . These developed into sung plays that are recognizable as English operas, the first usually being thought of as The Siege of Rhodes (1656). In France, meanwhile, Molière turned several of his farcical comedies into musical entertainments with songs (music provided by Jean-Baptiste Lully ) and dance in
12810-646: The West End on March 21, 2019, with an official opening on March 27. Replacement players included Maria Friedman as Golde and Anita Dobson as Yente. The run closed on November 2, 2019. A production played at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre from July 27 to September 28, 2024, directed by Jordan Fein, starring Adam Dannheisser as Tevye, Lara Pulver as Golde, Liv Andrusier as Tzeitel, Georgia Bruce as Hodel, Hannah Bristow as Chava, Beverley Klein as Yente, Dan Wolff as Motel and Daniel Krikler as Perchik. The production
SECTION 60
#173278347704213020-403: The cantorial sounds made famous in the song " If I Were a Rich Man ". The New York Times wrote "Zero Mostel's Tevye is so penetrating and heartwarming that you all but forget that it is a performance." In later years, the actors who followed Mostel in the role of Tevye invariably followed his staging. The show received rave reviews and was a great commercial success, running 3,242 performances,
13230-403: The longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until Grease surpassed its run. The production was extraordinarily profitable and highly acclaimed. It won nine Tony Awards , including best musical, score, book, direction and choreography. It spawned five Broadway revivals and a highly successful 1971 film adaptation and has enjoyed enduring international popularity. It has also been
13440-557: The minstrel shows ), followed by ragtime -tinged shows. Hundreds of musical comedies were staged on Broadway in the 1890s and early 20th century, composed of songs written in New York's Tin Pan Alley , including those by George M. Cohan , who worked to create an American style distinct from the Gilbert and Sullivan works. The most successful New York shows were often followed by extensive national tours. Meanwhile, musicals took over
13650-480: The "Golden Age" of American musical theatre. Americana was displayed on Broadway during the "Golden Age", as the wartime cycle of shows began to arrive. An example of this is On the Town (1944), written by Betty Comden and Adolph Green , composed by Leonard Bernstein and choreographed by Jerome Robbins . The story is set during wartime and concerns three sailors who are on a 24-hour shore leave in New York City, during which each falls in love. The show also gives
13860-569: The 1850s to the 1870s and Johann Strauss II in the 1870s and 1880s. Offenbach's fertile melodies, combined with his librettists' witty satire, formed a model for the musical theatre that followed. Adaptations of the French operettas (played in mostly bad, risqué translations), musical burlesques , music hall, pantomime and burletta dominated the London musical stage into the 1870s. In America, mid-19th century musical theatre entertainments included crude variety revue , which eventually developed into vaudeville , minstrel shows , which soon crossed
14070-504: The 1910s, the team of P. G. Wodehouse , Guy Bolton and Jerome Kern , following in the footsteps of Gilbert and Sullivan , created the " Princess Theatre shows" and paved the way for Kern's later work by showing that a musical could combine light, popular entertainment with continuity between its story and songs. Historian Gerald Bordman wrote: These shows built and polished the mold from which almost all later major musical comedies evolved. ... The characters and situations were, within
14280-654: The 1971 film adaptation, for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, and in several revivals over the next four decades. The show was revived in London for short seasons in 1983 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre and in 1994 at the London Palladium . The first Broadway revival opened on December 28, 1976, and ran for 176 performances at the Winter Garden Theatre . Zero Mostel starred as Tevye. Robbins directed and choreographed. A second Broadway revival opened on July 9, 1981, and played for
14490-499: The 19th century through 1920 was gradually replaced by American innovation, especially after World War I, as Kern and other Tin Pan Alley composers began to bring new musical styles such as ragtime and jazz to the theatres, and the Shubert Brothers took control of the Broadway theatres. Musical theatre writer Andrew Lamb notes, "The operatic and theatrical styles of nineteenth-century social structures were replaced by
14700-412: The 19th century, such as music hall , melodrama and burletta , which were popularized partly because most London theatres were licensed only as music halls and not allowed to present plays without music. Colonial America did not have a significant theatre presence until 1752, when London entrepreneur William Hallam sent a company of actors to the colonies managed by his brother Lewis . In New York in
14910-412: The 2000s. In 2005, Melbourne punk band Yidcore released a reworking of the entire show called Fiddling on Ya Roof . Gwen Stefani and Eve covered "If I Were a Rich Man" as " Rich Girl " for Stefani's 2004 debut solo album Love. Angel. Music. Baby. in 2004. The song was inspired by the 1993 British Louchie Lou & Michie One ragga version of the same name. Stefani's version reached #7 on
15120-533: The 2019 Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Revival of a Musical . The musical was an international hit, with early productions playing throughout Europe, in South America, Africa and Australia; 100 different productions were mounted in the former West Germany in the first three decades after the musical's premiere, and within five years after the collapse of the Berlin Wall , 23 productions were staged in
15330-810: The 5th century BCE. The music from the ancient forms is lost, however, and they had little influence on later development of musical theatre. In the 12th and 13th centuries, religious dramas taught the liturgy . Groups of actors would use outdoor Pageant wagons (stages on wheels) to tell each part of the story. Poetic forms sometimes alternated with the prose dialogues, and liturgical chants gave way to new melodies. The European Renaissance saw older forms evolve into two antecedents of musical theatre: commedia dell'arte , where raucous clowns improvised familiar stories, and later, opera buffa . In England, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays frequently included music, and short musical plays began to be included in an evenings' dramatic entertainments. Court masques developed during
15540-551: The Angry Inch and other shows in recent decades. Parade is a sensitive exploration of both anti-Semitism and historical American racism, and Ragtime similarly explores the experience of immigrants and minorities in America. After the success of Hair , rock musicals flourished in the 1970s, with Jesus Christ Superstar , Godspell , The Rocky Horror Show , Evita and Two Gentlemen of Verona . Some of those began as " concept albums " which were then adapted to
15750-517: The Army, his career resumed. He appeared in a series of plays, musicals, operas, and movies. In 1946 he even made an attempt at serious operatic acting in The Beggar's Opera , but received lukewarm reviews. He sang the title role in a short film of Puccini 's comic opera Gianni Schicchi . Critics saw him as a versatile performer. Zero Mostel made notable appearances on New York City television in
15960-677: The Atlantic had little money to spend on entertainment, and only a few stage shows anywhere exceeded a run of 500 performances during the decade. The revue The Band Wagon (1931) starred dancing partners Fred Astaire and his sister Adele , while Porter's Anything Goes (1934) confirmed Ethel Merman 's position as the First Lady of musical theatre, a title she maintained for many years. Coward and Novello continued to deliver old fashioned, sentimental musicals, such as The Dancing Years , while Rodgers and Hart returned from Hollywood to create
16170-425: The Atlantic to Britain, and Victorian burlesque, first popularized in the US by British troupes. A hugely successful musical entertainment that premiered in New York in 1866, The Black Crook , combined dance and some original music that helped to tell the story. The spectacular production, famous for its skimpy costumes, ran for a record-breaking 474 performances. The same year, The Black Domino/Between You, Me and
16380-756: The English-speaking stage by competition from the ubiquitous Edwardian musical comedies, operettas returned to London and Broadway in 1907 with The Merry Widow , and adaptations of continental operettas became direct competitors with musicals. Franz Lehár and Oscar Straus composed new operettas that were popular in English until World War I. In America, Victor Herbert produced a string of enduring operettas including The Fortune Teller (1898), Babes in Toyland (1903), Mlle. Modiste (1905), The Red Mill (1906) and Naughty Marietta (1910). In
16590-586: The Golden Age, automotive companies and other large corporations began to hire Broadway talent to write corporate musicals , private shows only seen by their employees or customers. The 1950s ended with Rodgers and Hammerstein 's last hit, The Sound of Music , which also became another hit for Mary Martin. It ran for 1,443 performances and shared the Tony Award for Best Musical. Together with its extremely successful 1965 film version , it has become one of
16800-610: The HUAC (as well as others) was incorporated into Eric Bentley 's 1972 play Are You Now or Have You Ever Been...? During this period he also appeared in many regional productions of shows like Peter Pan (as Captain Hook) and Kismet (as the Wazir), with his name seen prominently in the advertising. In 1957, Toby Cole, a New York theatrical agent who strongly opposed the blacklist, contacted Mostel and asked to represent him. Mostel agreed, and
17010-535: The Jewish faith is a line he will not cross. He forbids Chava to speak to Fyedka again. When Golde brings news that Chava has eloped with Fyedka, Tevye wonders where he went wrong ("Chavaleh Sequence"). Chava returns and tries to reason with him, but he refuses to speak to her and tells the rest of the family to consider her dead. Meanwhile, rumors are spreading of the Russians expelling Jews from their villages. While
17220-583: The London stage in the Gay Nineties , led by producer George Edwardes , who perceived that audiences wanted a new alternative to the Savoy -style comic operas and their intellectual, political, absurdist satire. He experimented with a modern-dress, family-friendly musical theatre style, with breezy, popular songs, snappy, romantic banter, and stylish spectacle at the Gaiety and his other theatres. These drew on
17430-560: The Mountains (1,352 performances) and especially Chu Chin Chow . Its run of 2,238 performances was more than twice as long as any previous musical, setting a record that stood for nearly forty years. Even a revival of The Beggar's Opera held the stage for 1,463 performances. Revues like The Bing Boys Are Here in Britain, and those of Florenz Ziegfeld and his imitators in America, were also extraordinarily popular. The musicals of
17640-655: The Post was the first show to call itself a "musical comedy." In 1874, Evangeline or The Belle of Arcadia , by Edward E. Rice and J. Cheever Goodwin , based loosely on Longfellow’s Evangeline , with an original American story and music, opened successfully in New York and was revived in Boston, New York, and in repeated tours. Comedians Edward Harrigan and Tony Hart produced and starred in musicals on Broadway between 1878 ( The Mulligan Guard Picnic ) and 1885. These musical comedies featured characters and situations taken from
17850-582: The Roof (1964). Bob Fosse choreographed for Abbott in The Pajama Game (1956) and Damn Yankees (1957), injecting playful sexuality into those hits. He was later the director-choreographer for Sweet Charity (1968), Pippin (1972) and Chicago (1975). Other notable director-choreographers have included Gower Champion , Tommy Tune , Michael Bennett , Gillian Lynne and Susan Stroman . Prominent directors have included Hal Prince , who also got his start with Abbott, and Trevor Nunn . During
18060-560: The Roof , a compilation CD featuring covers of Fiddler songs by indie and experimental bands such as the Residents , Negativland , and the Magnetic Fields . Indie rock band Bright Eyes recorded an adaptation of "Sunrise, Sunset" on their 2000 album Fevers and Mirrors . Allmusic gave the album a favorable review, and the online music magazine Pitchfork Media ranked it at number 170 on their list of top 200 albums of
18270-524: The Roof': The Farewell Tour opened on January 20, 2009, in Wilmington, Delaware . Topol left the tour in November 2009 due to torn muscles. He was replaced by Harvey Fierstein and Theodore Bikel . The cast included Mary Stout, Susan Cella, Bill Nolte , Erik Liberman , Rena Strober, and Stephen Lee Anderson. National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene mounted a Yiddish adaptation, Fidler Afn Dakh , at
18480-432: The Sabbath but does not tell him why, knowing that Tevye does not like Lazar. Worried that Yente will find her a husband soon, Tzeitel tells Motel to ask Tevye for her hand before the Sabbath dinner. Motel resists, as he is afraid of Tevye's temper, and tradition says that a matchmaker must arrange marriages. Motel is also very poor and is saving up to buy a sewing machine before he approaches Tevye, to show that he can support
18690-463: The Shrew for Kiss Me, Kate (1948, 1,077 performances). The American musicals overwhelmed the old-fashioned British Coward/Novello-style shows, one of the last big successes of which was Novello's Perchance to Dream (1945, 1,021 performances). The formula for the Golden Age musicals reflected one or more of four widely held perceptions of the "American dream": That stability and worth derives from
18900-689: The Spellbinder in the Letterman cartoons), and gave voice to the boisterous seagull Kehaar in the animated film Watership Down . He also appeared as a guest star during Season 2 of The Muppet Show , taped during mid-1977 and broadcast after his death. In the last four months of his life, Mostel took on a nutritionally unsound diet (later described by his friends as a starvation diet) that reduced his weight from 304 pounds (138 kg) to 215 pounds (98 kg). During rehearsals for Arnold Wesker 's new play The Merchant (in which Mostel played
19110-497: The Times Square area until the 1920s and 1930s. New York runs lagged far behind those in London, but Laura Keene 's "musical burletta" Seven Sisters (1860) shattered previous New York musical theatre record, with a run of 253 performances. Around 1850, the French composer Hervé was experimenting with a form of comic musical theatre he called opérette . The best known composers of operetta were Jacques Offenbach from
19320-783: The US Army Special Services unit was denied. Mostel had lobbied hard to transfer to Special Services , at one point traveling to Washington to request a transfer. It was not until 1950 that Mostel again acted in movies, for a role in the Oscar-winning film Panic in the Streets , at the request of its director, Elia Kazan . Kazan describes his attitude and feelings during that period, where Mostel played supporting roles in five movies for Twentieth Century Fox in 1950, all in films released in 1951. Fox then abruptly cancelled his contract. Mostel learned this after he
19530-477: The United States and Britain, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes in continental Europe, Asia, Australasia, Canada and Latin America. Since the 20th century, the "book musical" has been defined as a musical play where songs and dances are fully integrated into a well-made story with serious dramatic goals and which is able to evoke genuine emotions other than laughter. The three main components of
19740-538: The Way to the Forum , and Max Bialystock in the original film version of Mel Brooks ' The Producers (1967). Mostel was a student of Don Richardson and he used an acting technique based on muscle memory . He was blacklisted during the 1950s; his testimony before the House Un-American Activities Committee was well publicized. Mostel later starred in the Hollywood Blacklist drama film The Front (1976) alongside Woody Allen , for which Mostel
19950-486: The West End in the 21st century have been presented in one act. Moments of greatest dramatic intensity in a book musical are often performed in song. Proverbially, "when the emotion becomes too strong for speech, you sing; when it becomes too strong for song, you dance." In a book musical, a song is ideally crafted to suit the character (or characters) and their situation within the story; although there have been times in
20160-507: The actors' singing voices in a way that would generally be disapproved of in an operatic context. Some works, including those by George Gershwin , Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim , have been made into both musical theatre and operatic productions. Similarly, some older operettas or light operas (such as The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert and Sullivan ) have been produced in modern adaptations that treat them as musicals. For some works, production styles are almost as important as
20370-485: The album Fiddler on the Roof , which featured jazz arrangements of eight songs from the musical. In a retrospective review AllMusic awarded the album 4 stars, stating, "Cannonball plays near his peak; this is certainly the finest album by this particular sextet". That same year, Eydie Gormé released a single of "Matchmaker", and jazz guitarist Wes Montgomery recorded the same tune for his album Movin' Wes . In 1999, Knitting Factory Records released Knitting on
20580-436: The auspices of Mainstream, a Communist publication... MR. MOSTEL: I appreciate your opinion very much, but I do want to say that – I don't know, you know – I still stand on pay grounds, and maybe it is unwise and unpolitic of me to say this. If I appeared there, what if I did an imitation of a butterfly at rest? There is no crime in making anybody laugh ... I don't care if you laugh at me. MR. JACKSON: If your interpretation of
20790-451: The bookish Chava, is teased and intimidated by some gentile youths. One, Fyedka, protects her, dismissing the others. He offers Chava the loan of a book, and a secret relationship begins. The wedding day of Tzeitel and Motel arrives, and all the Jews join the ceremony (" Sunrise, Sunset ") and the celebration ("The Wedding Dance"). Lazar gives a fine gift, but an argument arises with Tevye over
21000-403: The broken agreement. Perchik ends the tiff by breaking another tradition: he crosses the barrier between the men and women to dance with Tevye's daughter Hodel. The celebration ends abruptly when a group of Russians rides into the village to perform the "demonstration". They disrupt the party, damaging the wedding gifts and wounding Perchik, who attempts to fight back, and wreak more destruction in
21210-403: The butterfly at rest. HUAC Hearing, Oct. 14, 1955. The admiration he received for his testimony did nothing to take him off the blacklist, however, and the family had to struggle throughout the 1950s with little income. Mostel used this time to work in his studio. Later he said that he cherished those years for the time it had afforded him to do what he loved most. Mostel's appearance before
21420-486: The cart himself, as his horse is lame. He asks God: Whom would it hurt " If I Were a Rich Man "? The bookseller tells Tevye news from the outside world of pogroms and expulsions. A stranger, Perchik, hears their conversation and scolds them for doing nothing more than talk. The men dismiss Perchik as a radical, but Tevye invites him home for the Sabbath meal and offers him food and a room in exchange for tutoring his two youngest daughters. Golde tells Tevye to meet Lazar after
21630-544: The cast. The remastered CD includes two recordings not on the original album, the bottle dance from the wedding scene and "Rumor" performed by Beatrice Arthur . In 2020, the recording was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry for being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant". Kenrick writes that while the original Broadway cast version
21840-474: The characters express their ideas. It defied musical conventions by raising its first act curtain not on a bevy of chorus girls, but rather on a woman churning butter, with an off-stage voice singing the opening lines of Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin' unaccompanied. It drew rave reviews, set off a box-office frenzy and received a Pulitzer Prize . Brooks Atkinson wrote in The New York Times that
22050-557: The comparatively frivolous musicals and sentimental operettas of the decade, Broadway's Show Boat (1927) represented an even more complete integration of book and score than the Princess Theatre musicals, with dramatic themes told through the music, dialogue, setting and movement. This was accomplished by combining the lyricism of Kern's music with the skillful libretto of Oscar Hammerstein II . One historian wrote, "Here we come to
22260-508: The continent, singspiel , comédie en vaudeville , opéra comique , zarzuela and other forms of light musical entertainment were emerging. The Beggar's Opera was the first recorded long-running play of any kind, running for 62 successive performances in 1728. It would take almost a century afterwards before any play broke 100 performances, but the record soon reached 150 in the late 1820s. Other musical theatre forms developed in England by
22470-452: The controversy surrounding it, ran for 108 performances. Rodgers and Hart's I'd Rather Be Right (1937) was a political satire with George M. Cohan as President Franklin D. Roosevelt , and Kurt Weill 's Knickerbocker Holiday depicted New York City's early history while good-naturedly satirizing Roosevelt's good intentions. The motion picture mounted a challenge to the stage. Silent films had presented only limited competition, but by
22680-548: The core of Frank Loesser 's and Abe Burrows ' Guys and Dolls , (1950, 1,200 performances); and the Gold Rush was the setting for Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe 's Paint Your Wagon (1951). The relatively brief seven-month run of that show did not discourage Lerner and Loewe from collaborating again, this time on My Fair Lady (1956), an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw 's Pygmalion starring Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews , which at 2,717 performances held
22890-526: The customs of the Jews in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905, where their lives are as precarious as the perch of a fiddler on a roof (" Tradition "). At Tevye's home, everyone is busy preparing for the Sabbath meal. His sharp-tongued wife, Golde, orders their daughters, Tzeitel, Hodel, Chava, Shprintze and Bielke, about their tasks. Yente, the village matchmaker , arrives to tell Golde that Lazar Wolf,
23100-494: The decade was The Black and White Minstrel Show (1962), which played for 4,344 performances. Two men had considerable impact on musical theatre history beginning in this decade: Stephen Sondheim and Jerry Herman . The first project for which Sondheim wrote both music and lyrics was A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1962, 964 performances), with a book based on the works of Plautus by Burt Shevelove and Larry Gelbart , starring Zero Mostel . Sondheim moved
23310-510: The divorce in return for a percentage of Mostel's earnings for the rest of his life. The arrangement lasted until the mid-1950s. Part of Mostel's duty with the Public Works of Art Project (PWAP) was to give gallery talks at New York's museums. In 1941, the Café Society , a downtown Manhattan nightclub, hired Mostel as a professional comedian to play regularly there, where he adopted the stage name Zero. Mostel's rise professionally
23520-403: The earlier musical forms of comic opera and operetta. The Geisha (1896) was one of the most successful in the 1890s, running for more than two years and achieving great international success. The Belle of New York (1898) became the first American musical to run for over a year in London. The British musical comedy Florodora (1899) was a popular success on both sides of the Atlantic, as
23730-547: The effects of the blacklist were lessening, and in 1959 and 1961 he appeared in two episodes of TV's The Play of the Week . On January 13, 1960, while exiting a taxi on his way back from rehearsals for the play The Good Soup , Mostel was hit by a number 18 (now the M86) 86th Street crosstown bus, and his leg was crushed. The doctors wanted to amputate the leg, which would have effectively ended his stage career. Mostel refused, accepting
23940-443: The end of Fiddler , the family members are alive, and most are emigrating together to America. The show found the right balance for its time, even if not entirely authentic, to become "one of the first popular post-Holocaust depictions of the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry". Harold Prince replaced the original producer Fred Coe and brought in director/choreographer Jerome Robbins . The writers and Robbins considered naming
24150-481: The end of that year. It then transferred to Stage 42 , an off-Broadway theatre, with Skybell, Hoffman, Mason and Nobile reprising their roles. Previews began February 11, with opening night on February 21, 2019. Musical staging was by Staś Kmieć (based on the original choreography by Robbins), with set design by Beowulf Boritt , costumes by Ann Hould-Ward , sound by Dan Moses Schreier and lighting by Peter Kaczorowski . The production closed on January 5, 2020. It won
24360-409: The end of the 1920s, films like The Jazz Singer could be presented with synchronized sound. "Talkie" films at low prices effectively killed off vaudeville by the early 1930s. Despite the economic woes of the 1930s and the competition from film, the musical survived. In fact, it continued to evolve thematically beyond the gags and showgirls musicals of the Gay Nineties and Roaring Twenties and
24570-544: The end of the Golden Age, several shows tackled Jewish subjects and issues, such as Fiddler on the Roof , Milk and Honey , Blitz! and later Rags . The original concept that became West Side Story was set in the Lower East Side during Easter-Passover celebrations; the rival gangs were to be Jewish and Italian Catholic . The creative team later decided that the Polish (white) vs. Puerto Rican conflict
24780-409: The everyday life of New York's lower classes. They starred high quality singers ( Lillian Russell , Vivienne Segal and Fay Templeton ) instead of the ladies of questionable repute who had starred in earlier musical forms. In 1879, The Brook by Nate Salsbury was another national success with contemporary American dance styles and an American story about "members of an acting company taking a trip down
24990-562: The fiddler, and Julia Migenes as Hodel. Mostel ad-libbed increasingly as the run went on, "which drove the authors up the wall". Joanna Merlin originated the role of Tzeitel, which was later assumed by Bette Midler during the original run. Carol Sawyer was Fruma Sarah, Adrienne Barbeau took a turn as Hodel, and Pia Zadora played the youngest daughter, Bielke. Both Peg Murray and Dolores Wilson made extended appearances as Golde, while other stage actors who have played Tevye include Herschel Bernardi , Theodore Bikel and Harry Goz (in
25200-532: The film version, the character of Yente is reduced, and Perchik's song to Hodel "Now I Have Everything" is cut and replaced by a scene in Kyiv. The "Chagall color palette" of the original Broadway production was exchanged for a grittier, more realistic depiction of the village of Anatevka. Theatre historian John Kenrick wrote that the original Broadway cast album released by RCA Victor in 1964, "shimmers – an essential recording in any show lover's collection", praising
25410-438: The first Broadway show in which an African-American, Ethel Waters , starred alongside white actors. Waters' numbers included " Supper Time ", a woman's lament for her husband who has been lynched. The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess (1935) featured an all African-American cast and blended operatic, folk and jazz idioms. The Cradle Will Rock (1937), directed by Orson Welles , was a highly political pro- union piece that, despite
25620-577: The former East Germany; and it was the longest-running musical ever seen in Tokyo. According to BroadwayWorld , the musical has been staged "in every metropolitan city in the world from Paris to Beijing." A Hebrew language staging was produced in Tel Aviv by the Israeli impresario Giora Godik in the 1960s. This version was so successful that in 1965 Godik produced a Yiddish version translated by Shraga Friedman. A 2008 Hebrew-language production ran at
25830-515: The founding of the state of Israel, and continuing with the blockbuster hits Hello, Dolly! (1964, 2,844 performances), Mame (1966, 1,508 performances), and La Cage aux Folles (1983, 1,761 performances). Even his less successful shows like Dear World (1969) and Mack and Mabel (1974) have had memorable scores ( Mack and Mabel was later reworked into a London hit). Writing both words and music, many of Herman's show tunes have become popular standards, including " Hello, Dolly! ", "We Need
26040-587: The funniest American now living". In March 1943, Mostel was drafted by the US Army . Although he gave varying accounts of his Army service, records show he was honorably discharged in August 1943 because of an unspecified physical disability. He entertained servicemen giving USO performances until 1945. Mostel married Kathryn (Kate) Cecilia Harkin , an actress and dancer, on July 2, 1944, after two years of courtship. The pair met at Radio City Music Hall where she
26250-409: The general audience. These titles include The Great Bank Robbery and Once Upon a Scoundrel . In the 1970s, he often played supporting rather than lead roles. His more notable films in these years include the movie version of Rhinoceros (appearing with his Producers costar Gene Wilder ), The Hot Rock and The Front (where he played Hecky Brown, a blacklisted performer whose story bears
26460-411: The grave to bless the marriage of her namesake, but to Motel, not to Lazar Wolf. Lazar's formidable late wife, Fruma-Sarah (" frum " is a Yiddish word for a devout Jew), rises from her grave to warn, in graphic terms, of severe retribution if Tzeitel marries Lazar. The superstitious Golde is terrified, and she quickly counsels that Tzeitel must marry Motel. While returning from town, Tevye's third daughter,
26670-399: The highest-grossing film of 1971 . Fiddler received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture , Best Director for Jewison, Best Actor in a Leading Role for Topol, and Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Leonard Frey (as Motel; in the original Broadway production, Frey was the rabbi's son). It won three, including best score/adaptation for arranger-conductor John Williams . In
26880-472: The history of the musical (e.g. from the 1890s to the 1920s) when this integration between music and story has been tenuous. As The New York Times critic Ben Brantley described the ideal of song in theatre when reviewing the 2008 revival of Gypsy : "There is no separation at all between song and character, which is what happens in those uncommon moments when musicals reach upward to achieve their ideal reasons to be." Typically, many fewer words are sung in
27090-599: The idea. Investors and some in the media worried that Fiddler on the Roof might be considered "too Jewish" to attract mainstream audiences. Other critics considered that it was too culturally sanitized, " middlebrow " and superficial; Philip Roth , writing in The New Yorker , called it shtetl kitsch . For example, it portrays the local Russian officer as sympathetic, instead of brutal and cruel, as Sholom Aleichem had described him. Aleichem's stories ended with Tevye alone, his wife dead and his daughters scattered; at
27300-527: The impression of a country with an uncertain future, as the sailors and their women also have. Irving Berlin used sharpshooter Annie Oakley 's career as a basis for his Annie Get Your Gun (1946, 1,147 performances); Burton Lane , E. Y. Harburg and Fred Saidy combined political satire with Irish whimsy for their fantasy Finian's Rainbow (1947, 725 performances); and Cole Porter found inspiration in William Shakespeare 's The Taming of
27510-479: The inn join in the celebration and show off their dancing skills (" To Life "). Outside the inn, Tevye happens upon the Russian Constable, who has jurisdiction over the Jews in the town. The Constable warns him that there is going to be a "little unofficial demonstration" in the coming weeks (a euphemism for a minor pogrom ). The Constable has sympathy for the Jewish community but is powerless to prevent
27720-447: The interplay of lyrics and music in his shows. Some of Sondheim's notable innovations include a show presented in reverse ( Merrily We Roll Along ) and the above-mentioned Anyone Can Whistle , in which the first act ends with the cast informing the audience that they are mad. Jerry Herman played a significant role in American musical theatre, beginning with his first Broadway production, Milk and Honey (1961, 563 performances), about
27930-471: The last five weeks of the run. Designers include Michael Yeargan (sets), Catherine Zuber (costumes) and Donald Holder (lighting). Initial reviews were mostly positive, finding Burstein and the show touching. The production was nominated for three Tony Awards but won none. It closed on December 31, 2016, after 463 performances. The U.S./Canadian tour of the Sher-directed production began in 2018 and
28140-548: The late 17th century. These influenced a brief period of English opera by composers such as John Blow and Henry Purcell . From the 18th century, the most popular forms of musical theatre in Britain were ballad operas , like John Gay 's The Beggar's Opera , that included lyrics written to the tunes of popular songs of the day (often spoofing opera), and later pantomime , which developed from commedia dell'arte, and comic opera with mostly romantic plot lines, like Michael Balfe 's The Bohemian Girl (1845). Meanwhile, on
28350-453: The late 1940s. He had his own show in 1948 called Off The Record on WABD with comedian partner Joey Faye . Simultaneously, Mostel had a live TV show on WPIX , Channel Zero . He also appeared in the May 11, 1949 Toast of the Town broadcast hosted by Ed Sullivan . Mostel had been a leftist since college and his nightclub routine included political jabs at right-wingers. His MGM contract
28560-402: The limitations of musical comedy license, believable and the humor came from the situations or the nature of the characters. Kern's exquisitely flowing melodies were employed to further the action or develop characterization. ... [Edwardian] musical comedy was often guilty of inserting songs in a hit-or-miss fashion. The Princess Theatre musicals brought about a change in approach. P. G. Wodehouse,
28770-535: The lives of Tevye's descendants living in an assimilated 1970s suburban America. In the film Mrs. Doubtfire (1993), Robin Williams parodies "Matchmaker". In a 1994 Animaniacs parody, Pigeon on the Roof , the Goodfeathers decide to marry their girlfriends; song parodies include "Scorsese" ("Tradition"), "Egg Hatcher" ("Matchmaker") and others. In 2001, the H. P. Lovecraft Historical Society published
28980-512: The location of his ashes is not publicly known. Mostel often collided with directors and other performers in the course of his professional career. He was described as irreverent, believing himself to be a comic genius (many critics agreed with him) and showed little patience for incompetence. He often improvised, which was received well by audiences but which often left other performers (who were not prepared for his ad-libbed lines) confused and speechless during live performances. He often dominated
29190-505: The long-run record for many years. Popular Hollywood films were made of all of these musicals. Two hits by British creators in this decade were The Boy Friend (1954), which ran for 2,078 performances in London and marked Andrews' American debut, and Salad Days (1954), which broke the British long-run record with a run of 2,283 performances. Another record was set by The Threepenny Opera , which ran for 2,707 performances, becoming
29400-535: The longest-running off-Broadway musical until The Fantasticks . The production also broke ground by showing that musicals could be profitable off-Broadway in a small-scale, small orchestra format. This was confirmed in 1959 when a revival of Jerome Kern and P. G. Wodehouse 's Leave It to Jane ran for more than two years. The 1959–1960 off-Broadway season included a dozen musicals and revues including Little Mary Sunshine , The Fantasticks and Ernest in Love ,
29610-819: The most famous musicals through the decades that followed include My Fair Lady (1956), The Fantasticks (1960), Hair (1967), A Chorus Line (1975), Les Misérables (1985), The Phantom of the Opera (1986), Rent (1996), Wicked (2003) and Hamilton (2015). Musicals are performed around the world. They may be presented in large venues, such as big-budget Broadway or West End productions in New York City or London. Alternatively, musicals may be staged in smaller venues, such as off-Broadway , off-off-Broadway , regional theatre , fringe theatre , or community theatre productions, or on tour . Musicals are often presented by amateur and school groups in churches, schools and other performance spaces. In addition to
29820-445: The most observant, literate and witty lyricist of his day, and the team of Bolton, Wodehouse and Kern had an influence felt to this day. The theatre-going public needed escapist entertainment during the dark times of World War I , and they flocked to the theatre. The 1919 hit musical Irene ran for 670 performances, a Broadway record that held until 1938. The British theatre public supported far longer runs like that of The Maid of
30030-585: The most popular musicals in history. In 1960, The Fantasticks was first produced off-Broadway. This intimate allegorical show would quietly run for over 40 years at the Sullivan Street Theatre in Greenwich Village , becoming by far the longest-running musical in history. Its authors produced other innovative works in the 1960s, such as Celebration and I Do! I Do! , the first two-character Broadway musical. The 1960s would see
30240-423: The music for a story about Rose Thompson Hovick , the mother of the titular stripper Gypsy Rose Lee . Although directors and choreographers have had a major influence on musical theatre style since at least the 19th century, George Abbott and his collaborators and successors took a central role in integrating movement and dance fully into musical theatre productions in the Golden Age. Abbott introduced ballet as
30450-509: The musical Avenue Q and the Broadway 2004 revival cast of Fiddler on the Roof collaborated for a Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS benefit and produced an approximately 10-minute-long show, "Avenue Jew", that incorporated characters from both shows, including puppets. The song "Sunrise, Sunset" appears in the direct-to-video animated Disney film " The Lion King 1½ ". Songs from the musical have been covered by notable artists. For example, in 1964, jazz saxophonist Cannonball Adderley recorded
30660-453: The musical Tevye , before landing on a title suggested by various paintings by Marc Chagall ( Green Violinist (1924), Le Mort (1924), The Fiddler (1912)) that also inspired the original set design. Contrary to popular belief, the "title of the musical does not refer to any specific painting". During rehearsals, one of the stars, Jewish actor Zero Mostel , feuded with Robbins, whom he held in contempt because Robbins had cooperated with
30870-480: The musical beyond its concentration on the romantic plots typical of earlier eras; his work tended to be darker, exploring the grittier sides of life both present and past. Other early Sondheim works include Anyone Can Whistle (1964, which ran only nine performances, despite having stars Lee Remick and Angela Lansbury ), and the successful Company (1970), Follies (1971) and A Little Night Music (1973). Later, Sondheim found inspiration in unlikely sources:
31080-444: The musical, with Thomas Kail directing and co-producing, and Steven Levenson penning the screenplay. The musical's popularity has led to numerous references in popular media and elsewhere. A documentary film about the musical's history and legacy, Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles , was released in 2019. Parodies relating to the show have included Antenna on the Roof ( Mad magazine #156, January 1973), which speculated about
31290-418: The necessary encouragement for other gifted writers to create musical plays of their own". The two collaborators created an extraordinary collection of some of musical theatre's best loved and most enduring classics, including Carousel (1945), South Pacific (1949), The King and I (1951) and The Sound of Music (1959). Some of these musicals treat more serious subject matter than most earlier shows:
31500-497: The new style." Tevye asks Golde, despite their own arranged marriage, " Do You Love Me? " After dismissing Tevye's question as foolish, she eventually admits that, after 25 years of living and struggling together and raising five daughters, she does. Meanwhile, Yente tells Tzeitel that she saw Chava with Fyedka. News spreads quickly in Anatevka that Perchik has been arrested and exiled to Siberia ("The Rumor/I Just Heard"), and Hodel
31710-766: The opening of Japan to Western trade for Pacific Overtures (1976), a legendary murderous barber seeking revenge in the Industrial Age of London for Sweeney Todd (1979), the paintings of Georges Seurat for Sunday in the Park with George (1984), fairy tales for Into the Woods (1987), and a collection of presidential assassins in Assassins (1990). While some critics have argued that some of Sondheim's musicals lack commercial appeal, others have praised their lyrical sophistication and musical complexity, as well as
31920-502: The orchestra that "weav[es] together excerpts of the score's famous melodies." There are various Eastern traditions of theatre that include music, such as Chinese opera , Taiwanese opera , Japanese Noh and Indian musical theatre , including Sanskrit drama , Indian classical dance , Parsi theatre and Yakshagana . India has, since the 20th century, produced numerous musical films, referred to as " Bollywood " musicals, and in Japan
32130-639: The original Broadway production opened on September 22, 1964, at the Imperial Theatre , transferred in 1967 to the Majestic Theatre and in 1970 to the Broadway Theatre , and ran for a record-setting total of 3,242 performances. The production was directed and choreographed by Jerome Robbins – his last original Broadway staging. The set, designed in the style of Marc Chagall 's paintings, was by Boris Aronson . A colorful logo for
32340-428: The original Broadway run), and Leonard Nimoy . Mostel's understudy in the original production, Paul Lipson , went on to appear as Tevye in more performances than any other actor (until Chaim Topol ), clocking over 2,000 performances in the role in the original run and several revivals. Florence Stanley took over the role of Yente nine months into the run. The production earned $ 1,574 for every dollar invested in it. It
32550-464: The original production, for example, Bob Fosse 's choreography in Chicago . There is no fixed length for a musical. While it can range from a short one-act entertainment to several acts and several hours in length (or even a multi-evening presentation), most musicals range from one and a half to three hours. Musicals are usually presented in two acts, with one short intermission , and the first act
32760-643: The other hand, many successful musical theatre works have been adapted for musical films , such as West Side Story , My Fair Lady , The Sound of Music , Oliver! and Chicago . Musical theatre is closely related to the theatrical form of opera, but the two are usually distinguished by weighing a number of factors. First, musicals generally have a greater focus on spoken dialogue. Some musicals, however, are entirely accompanied and sung-through, while some operas, such as Die Zauberflöte , and most operettas , have some unaccompanied dialogue. Second, musicals usually include more dancing as an essential part of
32970-410: The outdoor setting its focus on "the tradition of deflective Jewish humour" and an ending that invites "a broader reflection of displacement and refugee status". The original Australian production opened on June 16, 1967, at Her Majesty's Theatre in Sydney. It starred Hayes Gordon as Tevye and Brigid Lenihan as Golde. The production ran for two years. The first professional revival tour was staged by
33180-588: The partnership led to the revival of Mostel's career and made him a household name. He accepted the role of Leopold Bloom in Ulysses in Nighttown , a play based on the novel Ulysses , which he had greatly admired in his youth. It was an Off-Off-Broadway play produced in a small Houston Street theater, but the reviews he received were overwhelmingly favorable. Most notably, Newsweek ' s Jack Kroll compared him to Laurence Olivier , writing, "Something unbelievable happened. A fat comedian named Zero Mostel gave
33390-458: The production, also inspired by Chagall's work, was designed by Tom Morrow . Chagall reportedly did not like the musical. The cast included Zero Mostel as Tevye the milkman, Maria Karnilova as his wife Golde (both won a Tony for their performances), Beatrice Arthur as Yente the matchmaker , Austin Pendleton as Motel, Bert Convy as Perchik the student revolutionary, Gino Conforti as
33600-764: The relatively narrow confines of the 1950s. Rock music would be used in several Broadway musicals, beginning with Hair , which featured not only rock music but also nudity and controversial opinions about the Vietnam War , race relations and other social issues. After Show Boat and Porgy and Bess , and as the struggle in America and elsewhere for minorities' civil rights progressed, Hammerstein, Harold Arlen , Yip Harburg and others were emboldened to write more musicals and operas that aimed to normalize societal toleration of minorities and urged racial harmony. Early Golden Age works that focused on racial tolerance included Finian's Rainbow and South Pacific . Towards
33810-473: The rest of the family when they have saved up enough money. As Tevye, Golde and their two youngest daughters leave the village for America, the fiddler begins to play. Tevye beckons with a nod, and the fiddler follows them out of the village. All of the characters are Jewish, except as noted: Following its tryout at Detroit's Fisher Theatre in July and August 1964, then Washington in August to September,
34020-451: The revolution begun by Show Boat , by tightly integrating all the aspects of musical theatre, with a cohesive plot, songs that furthered the action of the story, and featured dream ballets and other dances that advanced the plot and developed the characters, rather than using dance as an excuse to parade scantily clad women across the stage. Rodgers and Hammerstein hired ballet choreographer Agnes de Mille , who used everyday motions to help
34230-426: The risk of gangrene , and remained hospitalized for four months. The injury took a huge toll; for the rest of his life, the massively-scarred leg gave him pain and required frequent rests and baths. He sought compensation for the injury by retaining the famous Harry Lipsig (the 5'3" self-described "King of Torts") as his attorney. The case was settled for an undisclosed sum. From this time forward, whenever he attended
34440-405: The role either, which he thought below his capabilities, but was convinced by his wife and agent. The reviews were excellent, and, after a few slow weeks after which the play was partially rewritten with a new opening song, "Comedy Tonight", which became the play's most popular piece, the show became a great commercial success, running 964 performances and conferring star status on Mostel (he also won
34650-422: The role of Max at first, but director Mel Brooks persuaded him to show the script to his wife, who then talked Mostel into doing it. His performance originally received mixed reviews, and the film overall was not a great success at the time of its release. The comedy, however, has since achieved classic status in the decades after its premiere. Reflecting on that rising popularity, Roger Ebert , longtime critic for
34860-462: The same time, Stephen Sondheim found success with some of his musicals, as mentioned above. Zero Mostel Samuel Joel " Zero " Mostel (February 28, 1915 – September 8, 1977) was an American actor, comedian, and singer. He is best known for his portrayal of comic characters including Tevye on stage in Fiddler on the Roof , Pseudolus on stage and on screen in A Funny Thing Happened on
35070-415: The sentimental romance of operetta, adding technical expertise and the fast-paced staging and naturalistic dialogue style led by director George Abbott . The 1940s began with more hits from Porter, Irving Berlin , Rodgers and Hart, Weill and Gershwin, some with runs over 500 performances as the economy rebounded, but artistic change was in the air. Rodgers and Hammerstein 's Oklahoma! (1943) completed
35280-420: The show's opening number changed the history of musical theatre: "After a verse like that, sung to a buoyant melody, the banalities of the old musical stage became intolerable." It was the first "blockbuster" Broadway show, running a total of 2,212 performances, and was made into a hit film. It remains one of the most frequently produced of the team's projects. William A. Everett and Paul R. Laird wrote that this
35490-407: The show, although it sometimes consists of a series of songs not directly musically related. Spoken dialogue is generally interspersed between musical numbers, although "sung dialogue" or recitative may be used, especially in so-called " sung-through " musicals such as Jesus Christ Superstar , Falsettos , Les Misérables , Evita and Hamilton . Several shorter musicals on Broadway and in
35700-415: The stage whether or not his role called for it. Norman Jewison stated this as a reason for preferring Chaim Topol for the role of Tevye in the movie version of Fiddler on the Roof . Mostel took exception to these criticisms: There's a kind of silliness in the theater about what one contributes to a show. The producer obviously contributes the money… but must the actor contribute nothing at all? I'm not
35910-476: The stage, most notably Jesus Christ Superstar and Evita . Others had no dialogue or were otherwise reminiscent of opera, with dramatic, emotional themes; these sometimes started as concept albums and were referred to as rock operas . Shows like Raisin , Dreamgirls , Purlie and The Wiz brought a significant African-American influence to Broadway. More varied musical genres and styles were incorporated into musicals both on and especially off-Broadway. At
36120-402: The standard for what was considered a successful show. These shows were designed for family audiences, a marked contrast from the risqué burlesques, bawdy music hall shows and French operettas that sometimes drew a crowd seeking less wholesome entertainment. Only a few 19th-century musical pieces exceeded the run of The Mikado , such as Dorothy , which opened in 1886 and set a new record with
36330-515: The storytelling, particularly by the principal performers as well as the chorus. Third, musicals often use various genres of popular music or at least popular singing and musical styles. Finally, musicals usually avoid certain operatic conventions. In particular, a musical is almost always performed in the language of its audience. Musicals produced on Broadway or in the West End, for instance, are invariably sung in English, even if they were originally written in another language. While an opera singer
36540-399: The strong-willed actions of his three older daughters who wish to marry for love; their choices of husbands are successively less palatable for Tevye. An edict of the tsar eventually evicts the Jews from their village. The original Broadway production of the show, which opened in 1964, had the first musical theatre run in history to surpass 3,000 performances. Fiddler held the record for
36750-623: The summer of 1753, they performed ballad-operas, such as The Beggar's Opera , and ballad-farces. By the 1840s, P. T. Barnum was operating an entertainment complex in lower Manhattan. Other early musical theatre in America consisted of British forms, such as burletta and pantomime, but what a piece was called did not necessarily define what it was. The 1852 Broadway extravaganza The Magic Deer advertised itself as "A Serio Comico Tragico Operatical Historical Extravaganzical Burletical Tale of Enchantment." Theatre in New York moved from downtown gradually to midtown from around 1850 and did not arrive in
36960-430: The timid tailor's display of backbone. After some soul-searching ("Tevye's Monologue"), Tevye agrees to let them marry, but he worries about how to break the news to Golde. An overjoyed Motel celebrates with Tzeitel ("Miracle of Miracles"). In bed with Golde, Tevye pretends to be waking from a nightmare. Golde offers to interpret his dream, and Tevye "describes" it ("Tevye's Dream"). Golde's grandmother Tzeitel returns from
37170-679: The traditions of comic opera and used elements of burlesque and of the Harrigan and Hart pieces. He replaced the bawdy women of burlesque with his "respectable" corps of Gaiety Girls to complete the musical and visual fun. The success of the first of these, In Town (1892) and A Gaiety Girl (1893) set the style for the next three decades. The plots were generally light, romantic "poor maiden loves aristocrat and wins him against all odds" shows, with music by Ivan Caryll , Sidney Jones and Lionel Monckton . These shows were immediately widely copied in America, and Edwardian musical comedy swept away
37380-415: The village. Tevye instructs his family to clean up the mess. Months later, Perchik tells Hodel he must return to Kyiv to work for the revolution . He proposes marriage, admitting that he loves her, and says that he will send for her. She agrees ("Now I Have Everything"). They tell Tevye that they are engaged, and he is appalled that they are flouting tradition by making their own match, especially as Perchik
37590-650: The villagers are gathered, the Constable arrives to tell everyone that they have three days to pack up and leave the town. In shock, they reminisce about "Anatevka" and how hard it will be to leave what has been their home for so long. As the Jews leave Anatevka, Chava and Fyedka stop to tell her family that they are also leaving for Kraków , unwilling to remain among the people who could do such things to others. Tevye still will not talk to her, but when Tzeitel says goodbye to Chava, Tevye prompts her to add "God be with you." Motel and Tzeitel go to Poland as well but will join
37800-449: The villain in Oklahoma! is a suspected murderer and psychopath; Carousel deals with spousal abuse, thievery, suicide and the afterlife; South Pacific explores miscegenation even more thoroughly than Show Boat ; the hero of The King and I dies onstage; and the backdrop of The Sound of Music is the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 . The show's creativity stimulated Rodgers and Hammerstein's contemporaries and ushered in
38010-425: The violence. The next morning, after Perchik's lessons with the younger sisters, Tevye's second daughter Hodel mocks Perchik's Marxist interpretation of a Bible story. He, in turn, criticizes her for hanging on to the old traditions of Judaism, noting that the world is changing. To illustrate this, he dances with her, defying the prohibition against opposite sexes dancing together. The two begin to fall in love. Later,
38220-419: The wealthy butcher, a widower older than Tevye, wants to wed Tzeitel, the eldest daughter. The next two daughters, Hodel and Chava, are excited about Yente's visit, but Tzeitel illustrates how it could have bad results (" Matchmaker, Matchmaker "). A girl from a poor family must take whatever husband Yente brings, but Tzeitel wants to marry her childhood friend, Motel the tailor. Tevye is delivering milk, pulling
38430-464: The work's musical or dramatic content in defining into which art form the piece falls. Sondheim said, "I really think that when something plays Broadway it's a musical, and when it plays in an opera house it's opera. That's it. It's the terrain, the countryside, the expectations of the audience that make it one thing or another." There remains an overlap in form between lighter operatic forms and more musically complex or ambitious musicals. In practice, it
38640-504: The works of Harrigan and Hart in America. These were followed by Edwardian musical comedies , which emerged in Britain, and the musical theatre works of American creators like George M. Cohan at the turn of the 20th century. The Princess Theatre musicals (1915–1918) were artistic steps forward beyond the revues and other frothy entertainments of the early 20th century and led to such groundbreaking works as Show Boat (1927), Of Thee I Sing (1931) and Oklahoma! (1943). Some of
38850-420: Was A Chinese Honeymoon (1901), which ran for a record-setting 1,074 performances in London and 376 in New York. After the turn of the 20th century, Seymour Hicks joined forces with Edwardes and American producer Charles Frohman to create another decade of popular shows. Other enduring Edwardian musical comedy hits included The Arcadians (1909) and The Quaker Girl (1910). Virtually eliminated from
39060-407: Was Golde. Barbara Barrie and later Nancy Opel played Yente, Laura Michelle Kelly played Hodel and Lea Michele played Sprintze. It was directed by David Leveaux . This production replaced Yente's song "The Rumor" with a song for Yente and two other women called "Topsy-Turvy". The production was nominated for six Tonys but did not win any. In June 2014, to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary,
39270-480: Was Golde. Robbins' production was reproduced by Ruth Mitchell and choreographer Sammy Dallas Bayes. The production won the Tony Award for Best Revival. A fourth Broadway revival opened on February 26, 2004, and ran for 36 previews and 781 performances at the Minskoff Theatre . Alfred Molina , and later Harvey Fierstein , starred as Tevye, and Randy Graff , and later Andrea Martin and Rosie O'Donnell ,
39480-561: Was a Rockette . The marriage caused problems in his relationship with his Orthodox Jewish parents: his new wife was not Jewish. His mother never met Kate or her grandsons. The marriage had problems at times, again mostly due to Mostel's spending most of his time in his art studio. Their relationship was described by friends of the family as complicated, with many fights but having mutual adoration. The couple stayed together until Mostel's death; they had two children, film actor Josh Mostel in 1946 and Tobias in 1948. After Zero's discharge from
39690-420: Was a "show, that, like Show Boat , became a milestone, so that later historians writing about important moments in twentieth-century theatre would begin to identify eras according to their relationship to Oklahoma! ". "After Oklahoma! , Rodgers and Hammerstein were the most important contributors to the musical-play form... The examples they set in creating vital plays, often rich with social thought, provided
39900-459: Was an A student. He also received professional training as a painter through The Educational Alliance . He completed his high school education at Seward Park High School , where his yearbook noted: "A future Rembrandt ... or perhaps a comedian?". He attended the City College of New York , a public college that allowed many poor students to pursue higher education. He later claimed that he
40110-822: Was born in Dziewięcniki [ uk ] , then in Austria-Hungary , later in Poland, and now in Lviv Oblast , Ukraine. He immigrated to the United States in 1898 with his first wife, Esther Wirklich Mostel, and young daughter, Celia. They would have three more children – Hyman, Sarah (Sadie), and Benjamin – before her death in 1908. His mother, Tzina, grew up in Vienna, Austria , and immigrated in 1906. Israel had five more children with Tzina: Morris, Milton, Aaron, Samuel (later known as Zero), and William. As
40320-1064: Was designed by Tom Scutt and choreographed by Julia Cheng. A 2003 national tour played for seven months, with a radical design, directed by Julian Woolford and choreographed by Chris Hocking. The production's minimalist set and costumes were monochromatic, and Fruma-Sarah was represented by a 12-foot puppet. This production was revived in 2008 starring Joe McGann . The show toured the UK again in 2013 and 2014 starring Paul Michael Glaser as Tevye with direction and choreography by Craig Revel Horwood . A revival played at Chichester Festival Theatre from July 10 to September 2, 2017, directed by Daniel Evans and starring Omid Djalili as Tevye and Tracy-Ann Oberman as Golde. A production at Regent's Park Open Air Theatre ran from July 27 to 28 September 28, 2024, directed by Jordan Fein and starring Adam Dannheisser as Tevye. A review by Mark Lawson in The Guardian gave it five stars out of five and praised its use of
40530-568: Was directed by Lindsay Posner. Robbins' choreography was recreated by Sammy Dallas Bayes (who did the same for the 1990 Broadway revival), with additional choreography by Kate Flatt. A revival played at the Menier Chocolate Factory from November 23, 2018, until March 9, 2019, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Andy Nyman as Tevye and Judy Kuhn as Golde. The production transferred to the Playhouse Theatre in
40740-468: Was dominated by musical theatre standards, such as " Fascinating Rhythm ", " Tea for Two " and " Someone to Watch Over Me ". Many shows were revues , series of sketches and songs with little or no connection between them. The best-known of these were the annual Ziegfeld Follies , spectacular song-and-dance revues on Broadway featuring extravagant sets, elaborate costumes and beautiful chorus girls. These spectacles also raised production values, and mounting
40950-586: Was fresher. Tolerance as an important theme in musicals has continued in recent decades. The final expression of West Side Story left a message of racial tolerance. By the end of the 1960s, musicals became racially integrated, with black and white cast members even covering each other's roles, as they did in Hair . Homosexuality has also been explored in musicals, starting with Hair , and even more overtly in La Cage aux Folles , Falsettos , Rent , Hedwig and
41160-464: Was given a touring production in 2004, with Moni Ovadia as Tevye and director; it opened at Teatro Municipale Valli in Reggio Emilia . The musical receives about 500 amateur productions a year in the US alone. A film version was released by United Artists in 1971, directed and produced by Norman Jewison , and Stein adapted his own book for the screenplay. Chaim Topol starred. The film received mostly positive reviews from film critics and became
41370-418: Was interrupted in March 2020 by the COVID-19 pandemic; it resumed in 2021 and continued into 2023. The role of Tevye has been played by Yehezkel Lazarov into 2022, Danny Arnold then assumed the role for several months, and the last months are being played by Jonathan Hashmonay. Fiddler was first revived in London in 1983 at the Apollo Victoria Theatre (a four-month season starring Topol) and again in 1994 at
41580-399: Was lent out to Columbia for a film role but not permitted on the set. The studio may have received word that he was about to be named as a Communist in Congressional testimony. On January 29, 1952, Martin Berkeley identified Mostel to the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) as having been a member of the Communist Party. After the testimony he was effectively blacklisted. He
41790-501: Was nominated for ten Tony Awards , winning nine, including Best Musical, score, book, direction and choreography, and acting awards for Mostel and Karnilova. The original London West End production opened on February 16, 1967, at Her Majesty's Theatre and played for 2,030 performances. It starred Topol as Tevye, a role he had previously played in Tel Aviv, and Miriam Karlin as Golde. Alfie Bass , Lex Goudsmit and Barry Martin eventually took over as Tevye. Topol later played Tevye in
42000-424: Was nominated for the British Academy Film Award for Best Supporting Actor . Mostel was an Obie Award and three-time Tony Award winner. He is also a member of the American Theater Hall of Fame , inducted posthumously in 1979. Mostel was born in Brooklyn, New York to Israel Mostel and Tzina Druchs (also spelled Cina, known as Celia), both Ashkenazi Jewish emigrants from Kingdom of Galicia . His father
42210-411: Was on the swimming team and the Reserve Officers Training Corps , though the claim is dubious. As only beginner classes were available in art, Mostel took them repeatedly to be able to paint and receive professional feedback. During the time he worked odd jobs. He graduated in 1935 with a bachelor's degree. He then continued studying towards a master's degree at New York University before leaving after
42420-452: Was praised by critics for its innovations in music and choreography but was less commercially successful than the same year's The Music Man , written and composed by Meredith Willson , which won the Tony Award for Best Musical that year. West Side Story would get a film adaptation in 1961, which proved successful both critically and commercially. Laurents and Sondheim teamed up again for Gypsy (1959), with Jule Styne providing
42630-430: Was produced in 2005 at the théâtre Comédia in Paris with Franck Vincent as Tevye and Isabelle Ferron as Golde. The Stratford Shakespeare Festival produced the musical from April to October 2013 at the Festival Theatre directed and choreographed by Donna Feore. It starred Scott Wentworth as Tevye. An Italian version, Il violinista sul tetto , with lyrics sung in Yiddish and the orchestra on stage also serving as chorus,
42840-407: Was pronounced dead that evening. It is believed that he suffered an aortic aneurysm . Wesker wrote a book chronicling the out-of-town tribulations that beset the play and culminated in Zero's death called The Birth of Shylock and the Death of Zero Mostel . In accordance with his final requests, his family did not stage any funeral or other memorial service. Mostel was cremated following his death;
43050-477: Was rapid. In 1942, his salary at the Café Society went up from $ 40 a week to $ 450; he appeared on radio shows, opened in two Broadway shows ( Keep Them Laughing , Top-Notchers ), played at the Paramount Theatre , appeared in an MGM movie ( Du Barry Was a Lady ), and booked into La Martinique at $ 4,000 a week. He also made cameo appearances at the Yiddish theatre , which influenced his performance style. In 1943 Life magazine described him as "just about
43260-447: Was rarely done. Among other things, he referred to Twentieth Century Fox as "18th Century Fox" (due to its collaboration with the committee), and manipulated the committee members to make them appear foolish. Mostel later commented: "What did they think I was going to do – sell acting secrets to the Russians?" MR. JACKSON : Mr. Chairman , may I say that I can think of no greater way to parade one's political beliefs than to appear under
43470-411: Was subpoenaed to appear before HUAC on August 14, 1955. Mostel declined to name names and jousted with the members of Congress, invoked the Fifth Amendment, while standing up for his right to the privacy of his personal political beliefs. His testimony won him admiration in the blacklisted community, and in addition to not naming names he also confronted the committee on ideological matters, something that
43680-417: Was terminated, and his role in Du Barry Was a Lady was truncated, because studio executives were upset that he participated in protests against another MGM film, Tennessee Johnson , which protesters believed had downplayed the racism of former US President Andrew Johnson . According to biographer Arthur Sainer, "MGM blacklisted Zero Mostel way before the days of the blacklist". During his Army service he
43890-425: Was the French operetta The Chimes of Normandy in 1878 (705 performances). English comic opera adopted many of the successful ideas of European operetta, none more successfully than the series of more than a dozen long-running Gilbert and Sullivan comic operas, including H.M.S. Pinafore (1878) and The Mikado (1885). These were sensations on both sides of the Atlantic and in Australia and helped to raise
44100-400: Was under investigation for alleged Communist Party membership. The Military Intelligence Division of the U.S. War Department said it was "reliably reported" that he was a Communist Party member. The Post Intelligence Officer at the Army's Camp Croft, where Mostel served, believed that Mostel was "definitely a Communist." As a result of that, his application to be an entertainment director with
#41958