Fiddler on the Roof is 50 years old today. Sounds crazy, no? But wonder of wonders, it's true — the show debuted on Broadway on this night in 1964.
It has been a long saga from Sholem Aleichem and Marc Chagall to Fiddler's current status, when nary a sunrise or sunset passes without it being performed somewhere around the world.
Journalist Barbara Isenberg has written extensively about Broadway: her new book is Tradition, published by St. Martin's Press,.