The South West Opera Company (SWOC) are returning to Bunbury following an award winning season of Cinderella, with one of the greatest musicals in history.
This time, the locally based opera company are bringing Fiddler on the Roof to the Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre in a co-production with BREC.
There will be three performances of the musical theatre show at 8pm each night from July 13 to July 15 as well as a special matinee performance at 2pm on July 15.
Set in 1905 in a small Jewish village in Tzarist Russia, Fiddler on the Roof is the story of milkman Tevye and his attempts to to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions in a changing world.
He must cope with the strong-willed actions of his three older daughters, who wish to marry for love, with each one’s choice of a husband moving Tevye further away from the customs of his faith.
Tzeitel, his eldest child, wants to marry the poor tailor Motel Kamzoil instead of a middle-aged butcher her father has chosen for her in the tradition of arranged marriages.
Hodel, his second daughter and the revolutionary student Perchik, become engaged without seeking Tevye’s permission and later decides to leave her family and homeland and travel to Siberia to be with her beloved.
When his third daughter Chava falls in love with the Christian Fyedka and marries him in secret this takes Tevye beyond what he is willing to accept and he declares her dead to him.
On Thursday, actor Rob Hill who plays the lead role of Tevye in the upcoming production joined fellow South West Opera Company member Breanna Cooke and her fiddler on the roof of Bunbury Regional Entertainment Centre for a photo shoot with a difference.
Hill said he was excited to be partnering with BREC to bring Fiddler on the Roof to life in Bunbury.
"The story is a little bit about the tradition that the Jewish people uphold in the Russian village and how Tevye's daughters are changing away from the natural or old traditions of the Jewish ways," he said.
"Tevye is torn between the love of his daughters and his tradition, his love of his church, his religion, his people.
"I guess that centres around the struggle he has with his loves and his traditions."
Hill said the role has been one of his most challenging.
"Rehearsals have been going extremely well. With two weeks to go until the show now of course they're rather thick and fast so it's fairly concentrated at the moment," Hill said.
"I think perhaps Tevye is my favourite all-round role in any musical theatre.
"There's so much substance in the man and the struggles he has really call on everything I have as an actor and a singer to portray that to the audience so it's a lovely role."
Fiddler on the Roof will perform four shows over Thursday, July 13, Friday, July 14 and Saturday, July 15 at BREC. For more information, or to purchase tickets, visit bunburyentertainment.com.