TEVYE SERVED RAW Opens Tonight Off-Broadway

Find out what happens to the beloved characters in FIDDLER ON THE ROOF after the musical ends. TEVYE SERVED RAW is an evening of Sholem Aleichem material, with adaptations of his 'Tevye' stories ("What, Me Worthy?" and "Get Thee Gone!"), scenes from his own long-unseen Yiddish stage version, and three of his purely comedic stories, newly adapted ("Strange Jews on a Train," "The Yiddish Sisyphus" and "A Stepmother's Trash-Talk"). The production is set to officially open this evening (Tuesday) at 7 pm at The Playroom Theater in the Heart of the Theatre District, 151 West 46 Street (just east of Seventh Ave.)

A lot of TEVYE SERVED RAW is very funny. Some of it is not. But all of it is served up onstage in a form that's very close to how he originally wrote it. This is not a Broadway musical version of the world most American Jews come from. This is the genuine article as written by the man called "the Jewish Mark Twain," who was really there and wrote what he saw.

TEVYE SERVED RAW stars Allen Lewis Rickman and Yelena Shmulenson (the Yiddish-speaking couple from the Coen brothers' A SERIOUS MAN) and Shane Baker ("the best-loved Episcopalian on the Yiddish stage today"). The production will be performed in English and Yiddish with English supertitles and delves deeply into what life in the shtetl - where most American Jews' ancestors come from - was really like. Unlike several current Yiddish-language productions, the cast of TEVYE SERVED RAW are all authentic speakers of the language.

TEVYE SERVED RAW has been in development for over two years, and has been performed in Los Angeles; Kiev, Ukraine; Toronto; and Massachusetts, among other places. This marks its New York premiere. Direction and translation are by Allen Lewis Rickman.