Steven Skybell to Star In FIDDLER ON THE ROOF IN YIDDISH West Coast Premiere

The Soraya will open its 2025–26 season with a special concert production of National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene’s Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish with English supertitles.

This West Coast premiere will feature most of the original Off-Broadway cast, led by Tony Award nominee Steven Skybell as Tevye, joined by Jennifer Babiak as Golde, Rachel Zatcoff as Tsaytl, and additional returning principals, alongside a Los Angeles-based ensemble. Performances are set for Saturday, September 13 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, September 14 at 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. 

Directed by Academy and Tony Award winner Joel Grey, this special concert version will present the full musical score with dialogue reduced by half, accompanied by English supertitles projected across a panoramic reproduction of the original New York scenic design. Zalmen Mlotek, NYTF’s Artistic Director and longtime music director of the project, will conduct the orchestra.

“In order to bring Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish to the West Coast, our foremost objective was to secure the original cast, not only for their highly acclaimed performances, but also because training a new cast to speak and sing Yiddish would have been a difficult undertaking,” said The Soraya’s Executive and Artistic Director Thor Steingraber. “Having all but one of the principal cast from New York come to Los Angeles will surely recreate the spirit of authenticity that made the original 2018 production such a hit.”

The cast will include Steven Skybell (Tevye), Jennifer Babiak (Golde), Rachel Zatcoff (Tsaytl), Yael Eden Chanukov (Hodl), Rosie Jo Neddy (Khave), Kirk Geritano (Motl), Drew Seigla (Pertshik), Griffith Frank (Fyedka), Samuel Druhora (Leyzer Volf), Lisa Fishman (Yente), Bobby Underwood (Constable), Carly Post (Shprintse), Glenn Rosenblum (Rabbi), Jodi Snyder (Fruma-Sara), James Monroe Števko (Mendl), Mikhl Yashinsky (Nokhem), John Reed (Avrom), and Lauren Jeanne Thomas (Fiddler).

The ensemble will feature Michelle Azar, Jessica Fishenfeld, Michael P. McDonald, Rachel Oremland, Rachel Policar, Bryan Vickery, and Brooke Wetterhahn.

The Soraya’s opening weekend will also unveil a new gallery exhibition, Through the Eyes of David Labkovski: Sholem Aleichem and His Heroes, on view through December 2025.

Since its Broadway premiere in 1964, Fiddler on the Roof has become one of the most beloved musicals of all time, winner of nine Tony Awards. In 2018, National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene reclaimed the classic with a groundbreaking Yiddish-language production directed by Joel Grey, praised by The New York Times as “fresh, authentic, personal, and highly emotional.”

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