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Canberra Today 13°/18° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

Philo’s ‘Fiddler’ on the rise

WITH only a couple weeks to go, director and choreographer Amy Fitzpatrick says her production of the ever-popular “Fiddler on the Roof” for Canberra Philharmonic is coming together.

“I’ve finished blocking the movements and now I’m filling in the details so that the characters will have passion,” she tells “CityNews”, as she sings the praises of veteran actor Ian Croker as the main character Tevye, the village milkman, and Liz de Totth, as his put-upon wife Golde.

It’s the first mainstage show Fitzpatrick has directed, though she has a distinguished history as a choreographer and has staged shows for her own studio company, Dance City, in Hume.

There is passion enough in the moving story of “Fiddler”, set in pre-communist Russia during the time of anti-Semitic pogroms.

But for Fitzpatrick, the musical, originally choreographed by Jerome Robbins, is a dance musical par excellence, so much so that Philharmonic is billing its 2012 production as “Jerome Robbins’ hit Broadway musical.”

Spare a thought for lyricist Sheldon Harnick, and composer Joseph Stein, whose toe-tapping numbers such as “If I Were a Rich Man” made that possible.

It should be a piece of cake to Fitzpatrick, whose studies of dance have included Russian and Ukrainian culture.

She’s also been drilling four young artists to perform “The Bottle Dance” with glass bottles on the tops of their heads.

“It’s authentic – it’s quite spectacular,” Fitzpatrick says.

“Fiddler on the Roof”, ANU Arts Centre, February 23 to March 16. Bookings to www.philo.org.au/ticketing or 6257 1950.

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Helen Musa

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