This book is for all the directors and dramaturges, all the cast members on stage and all the crew members behind the scenes, who will pool their talents to present new productions of Fiddler on the Roof from 2017 to 2039. As you gather in high schools, colleges, and community theatres, as you travel from city to town on road tours, whatever country you live in and whatever language you speak, I hope this book will be a reliable companion. I hope you will find answers in these pages to the many questions I know you will have. I hope my words will help you beckon to the fiddler so that you can bring him with you on your journey. And most important, I hope that through you, new audiences will come to see the many facets of this brilliant Jerome Robbins diamond.And to the rest of you, to budding feminists and learned academics and lovers of Broadway, be you Papas, Mamas, Sons, or Daughters, if you are rabbis or butchers or any profession in between, whether you are a rich man or only the wife of a poor tailor, you are entitled to some happiness… so I hope you like it too. Recommended from the KIRKUS REVIEWS: A wide-ranging book explores the history and lore of Fiddler on the Roof . Huttner's study was first published in 2016 in honor of the 100th anniversary of the death of Sholem Aleichem, the author of the original handful of Tevye the Dairyman stories. These tales were transformed by show writer Joseph Stein and his colleagues into Fiddler on the Roof , the enormously beloved and successful 1964 Broadway musical. Huttner calls her book a "bibliomemoir" and tells her readers that it illustrates the fact that "one of the deepest relationships in life can be with a text." When Fiddler closed in 1972, it was the longest-running show in Broadway history (it retained the title until it was surpassed by A Chorus Line in 1984), and it's been a theatrical staple ever since, generating the vast amount of personal and cultural resonance that the author examines in these pages. She dissects Marc Chagall's painting Green Violinist , which she calls a "major inspiration" for the creators of Fiddler . She pores over the much-vexed question of how faithful the film version was to the stage musical, the appealing elements in both, and how all adaptations correspond to Aleichem's original stories. The book's chapters are composed of individual, self-contained lectures Huttner has given at various venues over the years, and everything is well illustrated with curations of black-and-white photographs, the show's sheet music, and images by cartoonist Sharon Rosenzweig. Huttner's lifelong history with Fiddler is evident on every page of her book. It will be quickly apparent to readers that there's nothing she doesn't know about the stories, Aleichem, the Broadway musical, and the movie. As the author notes, this work represents the culmination of 18 years of research on the subject, which will make its wide reach very satisfying to fellow devotees of Fiddler . For those fans and more general readers, one of the most entertaining features running through many of these lectures is Huttner's consistent, low-key irritation with what she refers to as the "Conventional Wisdom" surrounding her subject, taking issue with misreadings and misinterpretations and delivering plenty of good-natured corrections. Her discussions of literary antecedents range from the Old Testament to Pride and Prejudice , and all of it is offered with an infectious enthusiasm. The only drawback to the reading experience stems from the composition of the book. Since the chapters are transcriptions of lectures, readers are constantly brought up short by Huttner introducing herself to various audiences or making local venue comments. The frequent "welcome to tonight's lecture" interruptions stop the volume from feeling like a smoothly flowing narrative. Nevertheless, the author's authority on the topic comes through loud and clear, and her decision to weave in great amounts of autobiographical reflections is well taken given the intensely personal connection most aficionados have to this particular show. The work is a must-read for Fiddler enthusiasts. A wonderfully chatty and knowledgeable examination of "all things Fiddler ." Jan Lisa Huttner is an award-winning arts critic and feminist activist. Huttner is the President and Editor-in-Chief of FF2 Media, LLC (ff2media.com), a website dedicated to expanding cultural awareness of women artists. Jan's FF2 team covers women working in the Applied Arts, Performance Arts, Literary Arts and Visual Arts, providing features, interviews, and reviews for the twenty-first-century reader. Huttner's proudest accomplishment to date is to have served as one of two credited story consultants (along with Alisa Solomon, the author of "Wonder of Wonders: A Cultural History of Fiddler on the Roof") for Max Lewkowicz's award-winning and highly-acclaimed documentary film, "Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles."