So you think you can dance?

By NICOLE DONNER and NIKOLENA HATTON

For some actresses, performing as a dancer in “Fiddler on the Roof “may seem like a far-off dream because the number of male characters greatly out number female characters. Amber Wood felt that way when she saw the 1971 movie version of the Broadway play.
“I watched the movie and I was saying to myself, ‘It sucks that I’m a girl because I’ll like never be able to do that,” said Woods.
As Director Rick Zimmer tossed around the idea of how he would fill the void of missing dancers, Wood playfully tossed out the idea of putting beards on women. The idea stuck and Wood, along with four other dancers including another female, will perform as the bottle dancers in the production due to debut tonight at the MHCC CollegeTheater.
Though varied in style and production, “Fiddler on the Roof” has been a fixture in schools for years. In 2006 alone, about 217 schools, both high school and college level, theater groups, and church groups in the United States are due to produce “Fiddler on the Roof,” according to the Music Theater International Association.
The last time MHCC hosted the production was in 1984, though it wasn’t the theater department but a community group called the East County Art Alliance. This production, with a cast of about 30, is MHCC’s largest dance musical to date, said Zimmer.
Zimmer said he had been thinking about having Dave Barduhn, the music & jazz ensemble director, play Tevye for several years before and asked him to do it last year. When Barduhn said yes, Zimmer said, “That set in motion all the researching and I went to New York to see the Broadway revival.” Zimmer traveled along with the production’s scenic designer Daryl Harrison-Carson.
“We all started talking about it as a design team and how we were going to approach it,” said Zimmer. He started building his production team and organized the play 1 year ago, pre-casting Barduhn without a read-through or audition. “Frankly, I’ve never seen him act,” said Zimmer.
“I didn’t ask him to audition. It was all on faith that I believed he could do it and he’s turning out to be, his work in rehearsals has been beyond my expectations.”
Auditions were held end of fall term and rehearsals began in winter term. The actors had to memorize lines, songs, and dance steps to bring the famous Broadway play to life.
The story of Tevye and his daughters includes elaborate dancing and songs that reflect Jewish life and tradition when finding a husband. With choreographer Cami Curtis on board, several cast members, many with little or no dancing background, had to learn different dance moves including traditional Russian and Jewish dances. Zimmer referred to large dance such scenes as “Tzeitel’s wedding scene” as “just mobs of people dancing.”
Matt Preston, the student who will portray Lazarwolf, said, “This play is very aesthetically pleasing because it’s got a lot of dancing in it. If you were to try to do this play without dancing, it wouldn’t work because a large part of Jewish culture is in their traditional dance, so if we can’t at least try to portray that, then it’s not really believable.”
One of the more recognizable dances is the bottle dance, performed at Tzeitel’s wedding, and has dancers balancing bottles on top of their hats as they dance together. The performers, taught by Curtis, dance without the glass bottles secured on their hats.
“Traditionally, it’s only supposed to be men,” said Amanda Fischel, who plays a chorus daughter at the wedding but then must change into men’s clothes (including putting on a beard) in order to do the bottle dance. With a shortage of men, Wood suggested they just put beards on the girls, and the idea remained. Several women in the cast are required to wear a beard if playing a male character on stage, says Zimmer.
The process of becoming a bottle dancers took weeks of practice balancing a plastic bottle on their head, followed by replacing the plastic with a glass bottle, and finally putting water in the bottle for a more realistic effect.
“It’s been a really tough process,” Fischel said. “At first we just had to learn the dance and practice and practice and practice together, and then we had to practice with wearing our hats and then the bottles and now we’re practicing with our coats because we’re wearing long overcoats and we have to kick them out of the way.”
Zimmer made a deal with the dancers, a tip he received from another director, that “if you can get through all seven performances without having a bottle drop, I’ll buy you a steak dinner.”
“That’s my goal,” Brian Moen, a bottle dancer, said in reference to the offer.
Moen has also claimed there to be a curse following the bottle dancers. As of Wednesday afternoon, two out of the five dancers had injured themselves to a point where dancing was difficult. Moen revealed he had fallen down steps the day prior and had stitches in his ankle, excusing himself from bottle dancing for that evening’s practice.
On top of having to dance with a bottle on her head, Fischel also has to play a man and wear a beard, and so, for several of the actresses playing men, there is a beard crew. The crew is solely devoted to placing beards on the people who need them. With the number of parts outnumbering the number of actors, several students will be portraying two separate characters.
“The Beard Crew: we’re turning women into men right in the middle of the show,” said Wu. “The doctors are played by young girls in the beginning of the show and then they have to switch [to another character].”
“I have to color in my eyebrows to make them a lot bigger and I’m going to have to put on a lot of makeup to make me look more manly,” said Fischel. “But playing the man’s part is more than just makeup and beards. We need to work on our posture and the way we sit and the way that we move our heads. Everything has to be more manly.”
The cast of 44 is making this production one of the theater department’s biggest, according to Zimmer. A full string orchestra will be led by Susie Jones, the jazz band director here at MHCC. A few musicians from the orchestra get an opportunity to perform on stage during a nightmare scene involving masks and special effects. Staying true to the title of the show, there is a fiddle player who weaves through the story.
Along with music and beards, costumes play a very important part in the modest ways of Tevye’s family in the play. Wu estimates there are 450-500 costume pieces to be used during this play alone, including anything from jewelry, masks and boots.  The sources of some of these costume pieces have been from personal belongings, renting and purchasing from Goodwill.
“In a way, the costumes are simple,” she said, “because they need to look like peasants and peasants would have worn simple clothing. They were modest people, but on the other hand, it needs to feel authentic and it’s important to control the color so there is an overall picture to the show.”
As to working on the show, Preston said it is “chaotic at times. It can be very difficult to get everybody on the same page, but when it does happen, it’s even more rewarding than if it was a smaller cast.”
Rebekah McCormick, who plays the youngest of Tevye’s five daughters, Bielke, said, “It’s fun watching the lights and everything come together. When we first started rehearsals, I could tell it was going be a really good show.”
Technical crews have worked diligently to perfect the lighting to set the mood and tone. Colors not only distinguish actors and seasons, but emotions and situations too. As opening night approaches, Zimmer isn’t feeling the sharp sting of nerves as pieces continue to come together.
“Technically it’s one of the smoothest musicals I’ve ever been associated with at this college,” said Zimmer. “We have a great technical staff, production staff and a talented cast.”
“Fiddler on the Roof” will be performed March 3, 4, 10, and 11 at 8 p.m. and March 5 and 12 at 2 p.m. in the MHCC College Theater. Student and senior tickets are $10 and public tickets are $15. For more information about tickets, call (503) 491-6969.