Fiddler on the Roof, Jr. On Stage in Dumfries

DUMFIRES, Va. — A junior Broadway version of “Fiddler on the Roof:, aptly named “Fiddler on the Roof, Jr.” will be on stage in Dumfries this weekend.

A total of 43 students, all ages 11 to 18-years-old, all whom are homeschooled, will perform the time-honored play on stage for a bit of free community theater. The performing group putting on the show at Pope John Paul the Great Catholic High School, the Lumen Christi Catholic Homeschool Group Drama Club says the price of admission is a canned food for donation to benefit the Holy Family Catholic Church Food Pantry.

This is one of two shows the club performs each year. Last fall they did Beauty and the Beast. Now with “Fiddler,” the young actors will take an audience to the little village of Anatevka, Tevye, where a poor dairyman, tries to instill in his five daughters the traditions of his tight-knit Jewish community in the face of changing social mores and the growing anti-Semitism of Czarist Russia.

Amanda Mattson, the show’s director, enjoys working with the young actors.

“We’ve had lots of kids perform with us before, but we do get a lot of new kids in the show, and the enthusiasm from everyone catches on to make a great show,” said Mattson.

There will be lots of dancing in the show, as well. And to make children comfortable on stage, Mattson conducted personality exercises to bring the children out of thier shells and more into the mindsets of what life would be like if they lived in the early 1900s among persecuted people, like the characters in the play.

The performances of the show are Saturday at 6 p.m. and Sunday at 3 p.m. Refreshments will be available to purchase, and a donations to the drama club will be accepted.