fiddler

FIDDLER ON THE ROOF
THEATER 4
-spring 1983
In 1981, unbeknownst to me, wheels were being set in motion. My sister Jaymie was in 10th grade and had joined Youth Club, a church group for 7th-12th graders. They met every Wednesday at the Morrisville Presbyterian Church, for dinner and a program. It was our family's church, but by fourteen i was ready to gently rebel against religion. Youth Club had grown since it's inception fifteen years before, and had a membership of sixty. What had also been growing was the annual musical, which was beginning to rival the high school's in scale and excitement. In 1981, the show had been BRIGADOON. Jaymie was in it, so i got trundled off to see it. Boring, boring, lordy it was boring. My parents asked me about joining, a suggestion that probably met with a crinkled face. The next year, they suggested it again, with um, more assertiveness. They made me join. I went, didn't have a good time…but thankfully, they couldn't force me to be in the play, CAROUSEL. Again Jaymie had a small part, and again i begrudgingly sat through it. The only thing i liked about Youth Club was the potatoes. Egg-sized and covered in butter, they were incredible. I would scam as many seconds and thirds as i could. The following year, my parents gave another ultimatum. They asked that i do one play. I had just finished my first year in marching band, and had no interest in theater. But they promised that if i did one play and didn't like it, i could quit Youth Club altogether. Grumpily, i agreed. With my skinny, youthful looks i got cast in the chorus as one of the "sons". We started rehearsing…and a funny thing began to happen. Dave Warner, the senior playing Tevye, was just a skinny kid you'd never look at twice, but when he got onstage…i couldn't believe he was the same person. I mean almost literally, i couldn't believe it. I was astonished, in a way i never had been with music. I guess the directors, Valda Wohlhueter and Dave Yantz, noticed something in me, because they started throwing a couple lines my way. I became the extra Jew. I even got a name, Yussel, the hatmaker. I had a tiny scene with Ron Stohler, a senior. The year before, I had thought Ron uncool as he played the starkeeper in CAROUSEL, and here i was acting with him and...liking it. I began to make friends, notably Ken Hartman and Robb Wilson, guys my age. Robb wasn't a church member, and the fact that non-church kids could join was part of the reason i hadn't insisted on quitting. It made the club less "churchy". I also began looking up to some of the upper classmen. I started parting my hair in the middle, because that's what senior Rob Kwortnik did. My Mom said that my hair didn't go that way, but i was determined. Sadly though, in what was my one chance to do a school play with Jaymie, it wasn't to be. She was an attractive, bright senior, and had a singing voice that had taken her to All-Eastern choir (my own senior year, i judged my voice to be not even worthy of district, three levels below All-Eastern). Jaymie had been disappointed by some nepotism in casting the previous year, and she'd just been cast in a lead role in the high school play. She decided to focus her efforts there. Deep down i really didn't mind, because i had been compared with her enough. Perfect grades, perfect voice…in retrospect, i'm sad we didn't do one play together, but at the time it made it easier for it to be "my" experience. And it was wonderful. When it ended, i knew i'd be back.