A Fiddler on the Roof

In early March I was cast as Lazar Wolf in The Players Guild of Dearborn's production of Fiddler on the Roof. We opened last weekend and did a gala performance of it last night in honor of Michael Guido, the late Mayor of Dearborn. Guido died of pancreatic cancer - the same cancer that killed my father - and the gala proceeds went to a local cancer institute.
Up until we opened I wasn't sure we had a show. There were glimmers, but there were also a lot of bumps and potholes. It was something like, "One week will it ever be right, when, out of that hat it's that big first night." The show has actually gone quite well. Mike Moseley is terrific as Tevye. The older daughters, played by Sydney Dombrowski, Anna Hnatiuk, and Maura Donovan, are very good. Brian Townsend gives his usually solid performance playing Motel KamZoil. Margaret Winoweicki is brilliant as Fruma Sara. And, Val Sisto, bless his heart, is wonderful as the Rabbi. Val and I performed together in 1961 in a Guys and Dolls with the Wyandotte Community Theatre. Val is 87 now and I think it's really great that he got this role and is playing it for all it's worth.
The picture is of me in one of my Lazar costumes. I was in the properties passageway between the main dressing rooms and the Green Room in the basement of The Guild. I took the picture of my reflection in the mirror with my iPhone. I've been amazed by the quality of the pictures that this simple camera gets.
We have nine more performances of Fiddler. I hope you get an opportunity to see it.

iPhone Experiment

-- Post From My iPhone
OK. This is supposed to let me publish to SparrowDroppings on the go ... straight from my iPhone to the world. Let's see if it works.

A Beginning

I haven't written anything in quite a while. Meanwhile, Barak Obama has been elected President and is the first person of Africian-American descent to hold the office.
Bush and company left the country in a hell of a mess. We're in a downward sprial of poor sales leading to layoffs leading to foreclosures leading to bankrupcies with no real end in sight. Congress passed a stimulus spending bill that I fear will leave my children and grandchildren with a huge debt.

There is also a growing disparity between the rich and everybody else. Some people have gross amounts of money and are able to do pretty much whatever they want. Then there are the rest of us. As my father used to say, "Come the revolution."

GM and Chrysler are on the verge of banruptcy. They want more billions from the Feds. I don't think they should get it. I also don't think the stimulus money should be used to avoid layoffs and cutbacks in schools. When the stimulus money is gone what do you do then?

Meanwhile the "war" goes on in Iraq and Afghanistan. I think we should let those people kill each other. Much of what's going on over there is being done in the name of religion. Somebody said, "With or without religion you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But to have good people doing evil things, well, that takes religion."