Waldorf brings 'Fiddler' to big stage

SANDPOINT — To take on a large-scale Broadway musical and perform it in its entirety with a main cast of just 10 eighth graders, you’d have to be either very brave or completely bonkers. Sandpoint Waldorf School instructor Michael Seifert admits he might be a little bit of both.

Luckily, he happens to have an extremely talented cast and crew backing him up for the school’s April 26 performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Panida Theater.

“I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into,” Seifert said during a short break in rehearsals last week. “It’s like you’ve walked out onto a high-diving board and you jump, thinking you know what to do. And amazingly, all these hands come to support you.”

That support network was in full view as students traveled from one classroom to another to practice dance routines, group songs and solos as the big day draws nigh. Musical director Scott Kirby played the piano, as choral coach Tria Dubuisson ran characters through their vocal parts. Earlier sessions included the assistance of choreographer Shauna Lyman and acting coach Jesus Quintero. Within days, local artist Peter Goetzinger will begin the process of building and painting sets for the production.

Normally, a production of “Fiddler” would require a cast of at least 30 actors and singers to realize the classic tale of Tevye, his family and their fellow villagers as they attempt to uphold Jewish tradition in the face of changing times under the oppressive force of Tsarist Russia in the early 20th Century. With fewer than half that number — even with the inclusion of five seventh-grade students in the production — Seifert needed to have students double up on roles.

“Everyone basically has a major role,” the director said. “It’s a great opportunity.”

The work began last November when Waldorf music instructor Andrea Lyman first began vocal practices with the group. Seifert initially considered the shorter, “junior” version of the play, but soon came to the conclusion that too much of the heart of the story had been edited out of that abbreviated script. Despite its 3-hour length, he decided to run with the full script for the musical.

“You get to feel who Tevye is, who the other characters are,” he said. “And you get a lot of that through the lines that would have been cut out.”

The shortened version “presumes that an eighth-grader isn’t capable of working at a deeper level,” Seifert added.

“But these students have been memorizing lines since first grade,” he said.

The director would know, having, in the Waldorf tradition, followed these same youngsters from grade one right up to their current status as the oldest class at Sandpoint Waldorf School. Each grade performs some sort of dramatic presentation every year, he explained, with eighth grade winding up with a full-scale stage play.

Not only does the content of “Fiddler” overlap with a Waldorf curriculum that covers topics such as the Russian Revolution, it’s also timely insofar as these students are about to leave that school of education for a different academic world. Beyond that, these young actors also have a chance to examine the social dynamics of family life, as they step into the roles of villagers who are in the thick of things as their children grow up, marry and move far from home.

“The message, the story, is timeless,” said Seifert. “We all have to go through these deaths and changes. It’s really poignant, because this is the perfect age for exploring those emotions. In acting, you have to be able to try things on. It’s a nice adolescent exercise.”

Students began rehearsing their lines and walking through the onstage “blocking” of their movements in late December. By the start of the year, they were involved in twice-a-week sessions that lasted about an hour each. With only a couple of weeks left before they take the Panida stage, the cast now works from 8:15-10:15 a.m. every weekday, with additional weekend rehearsals rounded out the schedule.

They entered this demanding routine with a good understanding of the characters and the world that formed them, according to the director.

“Before we started, I was able to take the background and follow the Hebrews through history,” he said. “It’s an amazing thing to follow how the Jews were scattered and persecuted.”

Seifert made sure to include a study of Jewish humor — something that is central to Tevye’s role in the musical — as part of his pre-show lesson plans.

“If you’ve been a people who have been oppressed for 5,000 years, you have to have a certain sense of humor,” he said.

Seifert already has taken his class on a couple of field trips to the Panida so that students can get a feel for what it’s like to be on a big stage in a large auditorium before the curtain rises for the actual play. As the show approaches, he shared, both the intense rehearsal schedule and the years of Waldorf training will fare his young actors well in performance.

“For them to do a full production on a real stage in front of the community challenges them to rise to their highest potential,” the director said. “And that’s what we encourage as a school.”

The “Fiddler on the Roof” cast includes Orion Goetzinger as Tevye; Sara Kirby as Golde and the Russian singer; Lydia Welp as Tzeitel and Grandma Tzeitel; Alisa Boggs as Hodel, Fruma Sarah and a Russian villager; Sadi Dills as Chava and a Russian villager; Jacqueline Owens as Shprintze and a Russian villager; Emily Nicholson as Bielke; Carson Andrick as Yente and Perchik; Jensen Heisel as Motel and Nahum; Nathan Roe as Lazar Wolf and Avram; Lily Waldrup as Mordcha; Terron Tvrdy as the Rabbi; Grace Johnson as Mendel; Gabriel Herrera as Fyedka and the Constable; Soncirey Mitchell as a woman villager; Max Poole as the canopy holder; and, in a break from her duties as a member of the Spokane Youth Symphony, Rachel Seifert as The Fiddler.

Tickets for the April 26 Sandpoint Waldorf School performance of “Fiddler on the Roof” at the Panida Theater are $7 adults, $5 children, available at Eichardt’s Pub & Grille, Eve’s Leaves, Pedro’s, Monarch Mountain Coffee and at the Waldorf school, located at 2007 Sandpoint West Drive.

Information: 208) 265-2683