Review: Fly North Theatricals’ FIDDLER ON THE ROOF is a Triumph

Fiddler on the Roof? In the tiny space at the Greenfinch Theater and Dive Bar? With a cast of only 19? “Sounds crazy, No?”

What sounds even crazier is a washboard playing Rabbi, a drum striking Tevye, a clarinet playing Natchum, guitar strumming Golde, a piano playing Chava, and an accordion playing Mordcha. It a certainty that few have heard Jerry Bock’s timeless score precisely orchestrated using a few non-traditional instruments.

Director Caleb D. Long and Music Director/Orchestrator Colin Healy have flipped the traditional musical on its proverbial head. What they have done with one of best musicals ever written is mind-blowing, astounding, and immensely entertaining.

Long and Healy have assigned the pit musicians roles and put them on stage. The immersive production is reminiscent of, and maybe inspired by, the 2016 Josh Groban led Natasha, Pierre, & the Great Comet of 1812. In that Broadway show actors filled multiple roles while playing instruments to augment the orchestra.

The difference here is that all but one of the instruments are played on stage. The second act entr’acte features Healy on Guitar, Fiona Brinkley on violin, Josh Baumgartner on clarinet, and Bradley Rohlf on the washboard. Healey’s orchestrations modernized the entr’acte and some of the other songs in the score giving them a skiffle, jug band, or folk music sound. While true to Bock’s score, the contemporized music was fresh, original, and fabulous.

Caleb Long knew he did not have the space to recreate Jerome Robbin’s legendary choreography. Still, he and assistant choreographer Maggie Nold kept many of the memorable elements of Robbin’s landmark work including the bottle dance.

The direction of this triumphant production is visionary. Long’s concept of storytelling through musicianship is inspired. The bass drum downbeats for “Tradition, “Tevye’s Monologue, Rebuttal, and the Chava Sequence” were struck by Ryan Cooper, the actor playing Tevye. Having Cooper play the drum creates a tangible emotional musical connection to Tevye’s pride, anger, disapproval, and disappointment.

Cooper’s inimitable take on Tevye was unlike any other portrayal seen before. He uses the full range and capacity of his speaking voice to enhance his comedic timing. As the hardworking dairyman Cooper milks every laugh from Joseph Stein’s text. The small performance space heightens the impact of his evocative eyes. His musicality, pitch, and timber give depth, humor, and heartbreak Sheldon Harnick’s lyrics. Cooper’s portrayal was emotionally truthful, honest, and exquisitely balanced.

Cooper’s ability to emote is not only captured in the showy parts of the role, but also in the subtleties he brings to Tevye. There’s a lovely moment that he and Rachel Bailey, as Golde, share during “Do You Love Me.” At the end of the number, he gives Bailey a loving glance and the sweetest tiny wink. That wink conveys more than most actors do trying to chew scenery. Cooper’s performance is special, and as any actor should, he gives Fiddler on the Roof it familial sense of love, loyalty, and faith.

Bailey is staunch as the homemaker Golde. She shows strong backbone as the boss of the home, even though it’s Tevye who thinks he rules the roost. Vocally she is on point with lovely performances of “Sabbath Prayer,” “Sunrise Sunset,” and Do You Love Me.” She a skilled musician, singer, and comedic actor.

Bailey and Sarah Lantsberger (Yente and Fruma Sarah) have great comedic chemistry and do nice scene work together. Lantsbeger shines in her dual roles as the matchmaker and the scorned wife come back from the dead in “Tevye’s Dream.” She shares the dream spotlight with Jade Cash in a wry portrayal as Grandma Tzietel. Cash also convincingly portrays Tevye’s eldest daughter, also named Tzietel.

Long stages “Tevye’s Dream” with stylistic panache and just the right amount of comedy and nightmarish macabre. He uses a long fabric tapestry, that is used symbolically throughout the entire show, to give Fruma Sarah exaggerated ghoulish arm length. The mix of costume exaggeration, smoke, lighting effects, Lantsberger, Cash, Bailey, and Cooper’s comedically spooky portrayals, and the cast’s outstanding vocals make for a most memorable dream sequence.

The long rectangular cloth used in the dream doubles as the Chuppah for the wedding scene. It is also used as the roping separating the men from the women at the wedding feast. It’s a fabric symbolic of the ties that binds the family and the town of Anatevka together. It creates marvelous imagery and is another one of Caleb Long’s ingenious directorial choices.

This presentation by Fly North Theatricals is their annual “pay what you can” musical that pairs professional actors and musicians with students from their academy. The yearly show gives talented youth musical theater actors valuable experience working in a professional setting.

Student standouts include teenage Danielle Singleton and Henry Schumacher as Hodel and Perchik. The two age-appropriate actors impress with emotively palpable acting and vocal performances. Singleton’s “Far From the Home I Love” is beautifully sung and heart wrenching.

Fly North teen regular Zoe Klevhorn impresses as the free-spirited and headstrong Chava who follows her heart while crushing her father’s. Caleb Long’s poignant staging for the Chava Sequence leans into her musicianship on piano. Klevhorn accompanies Cooper as he sings about his “little bird Chaveleh” instead of dancing the traditional ballet sequence. It is a lovely moment of imaginative staging in the confined space.

Other commendable performances from young student actors included a robust vocal performance from Kieran Thompson as Fyedka. His pure resonant tenor wowed in his short, featured performance in “To Life.”  Callum Thompson has a few scene stealing moments as Mendel and other characters. Elementary schoolers Annie Miller and Lacie Irby hold their own as Tevye’s youngest daughters Shprintze and Bielke.

This production of Fiddler on the Roof is a triumph! It is fresh, exciting, engaging, entertaining, and unlike any other seen. Caleb Long and Colin Healy have created a transformative piece of theater. It has a slight contemporary sound while staying true to the source material. Long inspires affecting performances from his actors and musicians.

Very few tickets remain for next weekend. Those who get to see it will be profoundly touched by Caleb Long’s life-changing art.

Fiddler on The Roof continues at Greenfinch Theater and Dive Bar through May 3, 2026. For more information visit flynorth.org.