Fiddling again

At its heart, “Fiddler on the Roof” is about a father struggling to make his daughters happy.
So when Amelia Freeman asked her dad about putting on a production of the show before she heads off to college, how could he say no?
The Freemans — father Ron, mother Loni and daughter Amelia — are just a few of the actors reprising roles or taking on new ones as local theatre group “Harmony Players” performs the Broadway classic beginning Thursday at Arts Place in Portland.
“We hadn’t done a play as a group in a long time, and I just really wanted to do it,” said Amelia. “And I knew the community loved this show.”
Amelia was 8 years old when Jay County Civic Theatre and Crying Baby Productions put on the same show a decade ago.
She has been involved in productions through Bearcreek Farms and civic theatre over the years, but had been home-schooled and missed out on the opportunity to take part in high school shows. So she brought up the idea of bringing back “Fiddler” before she heads off to Anderson University in the fall.
“This is really special,” said Ron, who is producing the show in addition to reprising the lead role of Tevye. “She’s really the big motivation behind why we’re doing it.”
While her father was able to keep the same role, Amelia has grown out of playing Bielke, Tevye’s youngest daughter.
Part of the reason she was interested in “Fiddler” was because she wanted to portray Hodel, Tevye’s second-oldest daughter. It’s a character she loved from the first time she was in the show, and she especially relishes the opportunity to sing “Far from the Home I Love” in the second act.
“I loved her spunk a lot,” said Amelia. “I really wanted to play that. And she gets a solo and I loved the song, so I get to sing that now.”
But while Amelia’s idea sparked the effort to perform the show based on the book “Tevye and his Daughters” by Sholem Aleichem, the Freemans are just a few of the returning actors.
Also reprising roles are Linda Rodden (Yente), Pete Vogler (Lazar Wolf), Bev Wolford (Golde) and Kent McClung (Constable).
Vogler, East Jay Middle School’s band director and teacher, is excited to be back in one of his favorite roles.
“I get to get mad and frustrated,” he said. “I always seem to end up being a pirate or a frustrated Jewish butcher or a British sailor. Anything like that where you need a curmudgeon in it, I tend to seem to gravitate to those kinds of parts.”
In addition to playing the village matchmaker, Rodden is also directing the show for a second time.
Much of the show is staying the same from the first time around, but she noted some changes. There will be some different choreography, and McClung is taking his role in a more “Russian” and less comedic direction.
“I was really glad we were able to do it. It’s a lot of fun,” said Rodden. “It’s fun to do some things new and better and differently, but then also great to remember what we did and how well almost everything went before. It’s a lot of fun.”
Like the Freemans, Rodden also has plenty of family involved.
Her daughter-in-law Becky is playing Tzeitel, Tevye’s oldest daughter, and sons Seth and Lucas are portraying Motel and Perchik, two of the daughters’ love interests. Her husband Jordan and father, Glen Priest, have smaller roles, and son Tristan is handling the technical operations.
And, like Amelia Freeman, her daughter Emma has grown into a new role this time around as she plays Tevye’s middle daughter, Chava.
“They were practically just sitting on the edge of the stage doing nothing, and now they have major roles,” said Loni Freeman of her daughter and Emma. “So that is really, really fun, really exciting.”
The opportunity brought Loni, who plays Grandma Tzeitel, out of a six-year “retirement” since her last performance in “My Fair Lady.”
“I’ve said several times, ‘I think I’m just retired,’ because it is nerve-wracking and it’s a lot of work,” she said. “But when Amelia wanted to be in one again, it’s kind of like, ‘OK.’ We were in quite a few shows with our older daughter, and of course Amelia when she was little, so we said, ‘OK, we’ll do it.’ We’ll do it for her.”
In addition to playing the lead role, Ron Freeman has brought the show together as its producer.
He rented costumes from Fort Wayne and Marion civic theatres, and after trying several other routes, contracted Display Craft in Portland to create the backdrop. His son-in-law, Andrew Edmonds, the theatre technical director at Huntington University, built the set and set up the lighting.
While it’s been a lot of work, Ron said it’s been worth it to have so many performers in the cast of about 25 back together, remembering the past show and reliving it 10 years later.
“That’s really special. It really is,” he said. “There are a couple that we don’t have back that I miss, but I’ve really enjoyed the new ones we’ve had too. It is special getting back together and kind of reliving what we did the last time.”