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After several years of opening Baylor Theatre seasons with musicals like “Love’s Labor Lost,” “Legally Blonde” and “Into The Woods,” the Baylor theater department faculty decided to shift from contemporary to classic for the 2016-17 season, tapping the 1964 musical “Fiddler on the Roof” as the season lead-in.

“It seemed like the time to try a classic musical from the golden age of musicals,” explained director Steven Pounders, who finds himself at the helm of a musical for the first time since Baylor’s 2004 production of “Quilters.”

The 1964 Tony Award-winning musical tells the story of the milkman Tevye; his wife, Golde; and their five daughters, who live in the Russian village of Anatevka in 1905.

Anatevka is located in the Pale of Settlement, a band of western Russia extending roughly from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and the territory where most Jews in Russia were forced to live. Faced with persecution and the uncertainty of life at the whim of government officials, Tevye and his fellow Jews find sustenance and meaning in their faith’s tradition.