Amidst Budget Issues, Panther Players Perform 'Fiddler'

In the wake of a 2010 budget cut that has limited performances for the Miller Place Panther Players, the high school theater troup performed its production of Fiddler on the Roof on Sunday night, packing the house.

The show was the third of four scheduled, starting last Friday, and all three have sold out thus far. Normally, the players would put on six shows, but due to a trimmer 2010-2011 budget, the performances were reduced to four. 

The proposed 2011-2012 budget would cut the theater program altogether.

According to David Kramer, the director of the theater program at Miller Place, the work on the production began eight months before show time and, in the end, involved 171 people; 140 of which were students. Beyond the cast, students worked on set construction, make-up and hairstyling, lighting and painting. Another 19 students volunteered to usher the shows and do concessions.

The musical is set in a small Russian village called Anatevka in 1905 on the eve of the Russian Revolution. It chronicles the life of Tevye, a milkman with five daughters, and his struggles to maintain Jewish traditions while outside influences threaten to change that way of life. Over two acts and 18 scenes, Tevye’s first three daughters get married, with each husband moving farther away from proper tradition.

The role of Tevye was performed by Michael Tonkin, Suzanne Greene played Golde, Tevye’s wife, Tori Verni platyed Yente, the village matchmaker, Michael Fales played Perchik, an out-of-town student who teaches Tevye’s younger daughters and falls in love with Hodel, played by Samantha Wolman.

 The elaborate sets evoking circa-1900 rural Russia included live chickens in cages. The final of the four shows will take place Tuesday night.

The production comes at an unstable time in the school year, as the district continues to discuss its , which would slash the theater program.

Kramer said we won't get hung up on the future of the program and his position there until the budget is finalized.

“What that means for me, I can’t say,” he said.