Tradition!

Last night I caught the last 45 minutes of a movie on PBS.  It was a movie I’d seen many times before: Fiddler on the Roof.

The very first Broadway show I ever saw was Fiddler on the Roof.  It was 1972, and the show had been running since 1964.  I was 12 years old.

I had committed the entire  cast album to memory long before I saw the show.

I’ve seen so many Broadway shows since then, but …

Well, I saw Fiddler with my grandmother, who’d grown up in the same kind of town as was depicted on the stage. My grandmother cried …

The story is universal, everyone can relate to feeling lost in a changing world.  But for me, the story is also about my heritage.

Which is why we took my daughters to see Fiddler when it was revived on Broadway in 2004.

So I watched the last 45 minutes of the movie.  And I cried…