A new version of Anatevka, otherwise known for its original title Fiddler on the Roof will open Sept. 20, 1998 at the Royal Theatre Carri in Amsterdam, to play a 12 city tour in The Netherlands until June 1999.

The first national tour of Fiddler will play semi-open ended runs in each city, visiting nearly all regional Dutch theatres.

The musical by Joseph Stein, Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick, will play in a new Dutch translation by Koen van Dijk (author of Cyrano, the Musical and Joe, the musical) and will be directed by Ken Caswell, who previously directed Les Miserables and Sweeney Todd in The Netherlands.

The part of Tevye will be played by Henk Poort, who performed the role of Jean Valjean in the original Dutch production of Les Misirables and was the original Phantom in the Dutch version of The Phantom of the Opera. The cast will consist of 33 actors, including Bea Meulman as Golde, Anne Mieke Ruyten as Tzeitel, Maaike Widdershoven as Hodel, Smadar Monsinos as Chava, Jules Croiset as Leiser Wolf and Carry Tefsen as Yente. Carrie Tefsen also performed in the original Dutch production of Anatevka in 1966/1967. The musical director will be Harry van Hoof.

Anatevka was last seen in The Netherlands between 1991 and 1993 in a production of the Koninklijk Ballet van Vlaanderen (The Royal Ballet of Flanders), which starred actor Nolle Versyp as Tevye. When the musical played in The Netherlands in the 1966/1967 season, the role of Tevye was performed by Lex Goudsmit, who also performed the part in London's West End. --By Maxim Bezembinder
Netherlands/Belgium Correspondent