By CASEY NEILL
A BREAKTHROUGH role doesn’t get much better than the fiddler in Fiddler on the Roof.
Pakenham resident Brett Fisher will make his professional musical theatre debut on Melbourne’s Princess Theatre stage alongside Anthony Warlow, Sigrid Thornton and Mark Mitchell on 29 December.
The show will move to Sydney’s Capitol Theatre from 26 March.
“This is the first big musical for me, which is really exciting,” Brett said.
“Playing such a big character was amazing.
“It’s pretty full-on but it’s awesome.”
The 23-year-old was born at Dandenong Hospital and spent the first five years of his life in Doveton before moving to Beaconsfield. He now calls Pakenham home.
It was during his studies at Berwick Secondary College that he discovered his love for performing.
“It has a great performing arts program,” he said.
“I always loved acting at school and I did drama and theatre studies at school.
“It was pretty early when I discovered I really wanted to act, Year 8 or Year 9.
“It was great seeing how things worked and getting into people’s heads.
“One day I decided I wanted to dance. This was in Year 12.
“I decided to go for it and pursue acting and dancing.”
Meanwhile Hallam resident Darren Tyler found himself making the same pursuit of the stage many years earlier.
Darren is one of the dance captains for Fiddler on the Roof and will also feature in the show, as well as having a “swing” role.
This means Darren has to be prepared to fill in for any of the other ensemble cast members if, for whatever reason, they are unable to perform on show night.
The 39-year-old, who has been dancing since he was just six, has been involved in musical theatre since 1998.
He said it was even more important now than it was back then to be a “triple threat” in the performance industry – that is, being an accomplished singer, dancer and actor.
“There’s a lot of full-time musical theatre courses now, there weren’t so many when I was training,” Darren said.
“Now everyone needs to be strong triple threat.
“You have to do it all to do musical theatre.”
The Fiddler on the Roof is Darren’s 17th show, and he has played a pivotal role in organising its choreography.
“I’ve been lucky,” he said.
