Sight Unseen and A Shayne Maidel. In the United
States, he has directed mainly on film, including
Cagney and Lacey, which was based on the long-run-
ning television series of the same name in which he
played Lt. Bert Samuels.
For his role as Jack Adams, general manager of
the Detroit Red Wings in the movie Net Worth,
Waxman received the 1997 Gemini Award, the
Canadian equivalent of the Oscar. He also was
awarded the highest civilian honor, the Order of
Canada, given to individuals who represent the pin-
nacle of their profession, in 1997.
Born and raised in Toronto, Waxman, 65, is mar-
ried to Sara, a journalist and restaurant critic for the
Toronto Sun. A daughter, Tobaron, attends the
School of the Art Institute in Chicago and a son,
Adam, is at Cornell University, studying Japanese.
The prolific Waxman also penned a recently pub-
lished autobiography, That's What I Am, in which he
discusses the antisemitism he encountered while
growing up. It included the humiliation he suffered
at school when his fellow hockey players chose him
as team captain and the coach, noting that Waxman
was the only Jew among 11 Christians, refused him
the opportunity.
Though Waxman admits this and other subtle
injustices made him feel hurt and angry, he never let
it stop him from doing what he wanted to do. He
also realized that what he suffered paled in compari-
son to the people he would later meet and know
who had survived the Holocaust.
"On the one hand, [antisemitism] may exist,"
notes Waxman. "On the other hand, what also exists
is the opportunity to overcome it. And one of the
ways you overcome it is through the theater."

F

or 17-year-old actress Maggie Blake, Anne
Frank always had an allure. At age 11, Blake
delivered a speech and wrote a short story on
the immortal Jewish girl who hid in the attic during
the Holocaust.
Six years later, Blake is playing Anne. To prepare
for her role, Maggie and her father, former Stratford
actor Chris Blake, traveled to Amsterdam to see the
Secret Annex and to Bergen-Belsen concentration
camp in Germany, where Anne died of typhus in
1945 several months shy of her 16th birthday.
The experience left an indelible imprint on the
non-Jewish actress. "I think it was a horrific time
...going to Bergen-Belsen and seeing mass graves
around me. It really hit me close."
Now in her fourth season at Stratford, Blake, a
fourth-generation actress, started performing at age
7. In addition to Stratford, she has already chalked
up three seasons at the Shaw Festival, including an
indelible performance as Mary Tilford, the mean
and sadistic child in Lillian Hellman's The Children's
Hour.
Adrienne Gould makes her Stratford debut as
Margot, Anne's older sister. Being Jewish is what
brought the Canadian actress to the story in the first
place and the reason why she could relate to Anne
and her diary in so many ways when she was grow-
ing up.
To help prepare for her role, Gould, Waxman and
Blake met with Toronto Holocaust survivor Anita
Mayer, author of One Who Came Back. Mayer, 75,

shared a bunk with Anne, Margot, their mother and
one other inmate at Auschwitz.
Born and raised in Ottawa, Gould graduated
from the North Carolina School of the Arts in
1998. She also spent a summer at the Williamstown
Theater Festival and lived in New York for a year
before returning to Canada.

F

iddler on the Roof the 1964 musical by Jerry
Bock, Sheldon Harnick and Joseph Stein,
remains one the great works of the American
musical theater.
For director Susan H. Schulman, who returns to
Stratford after a triumphant debut directing Man of
La Mancha in 1998, the words "classic" and "uni-
versal" come to mind. It's a phenomenon, she says,
that a show that deals with a particular kind of peo-
ple at a particular time and place should have such
universal appeal, adding that it is the most popular
show in Japan.
Humor is key to its tireless charm, notes
Schulman. "Here's this main character, Tevye, who's
larger than life, has this personal relationship with
God and with the audience. He's very appealing
because he is not above making fun of himself."
Every director has his take on the show he or she
is directing. For Schulman, it was important not to
replicate the original, but to grow with the times.
Casting Brent Carver in the role of Tevye, says
Schulman, is a very fresh approach to the play.
About Carver, Schulman says, "I cast the finest
Canadian musical theater person I could find who
has the soul for the role."
Schulman admits the non-Jewish Carver knew
more about Orthodoxy than his Jewish director at
the outset. Having just played the Jewish Leo Frank
in Parade on Broadway, Carver arrived on the set of
Fiddler well prepared. "By the end of this rehearsal
period, he will be totally ready for conversion," jokes
Schulman.
Other productions Schulman has directed include
the Tony Award-winning The Secret Garden, both on
Broadway and for its national tour, and the 1990
New York revival of Sweeney Todd, for which she
received a Tony nomination.
Schulman, who is single, was born and raised in
Brooklyn and is a 1967 graduate of the Yale School
of Drama. She makes her home in New York City.

T

opol, Luther Adler, Herschel Bernardi and
the legendary Zero Mostel. All Tevyes of
their time.
Enter Brent Carver, who reprises the role of the
lovable milkman and ubiquitous philosopher at
Stratford this summer. No stranger to the Broadway
musical stage (in addition to his performance as Leo
Frank, Carver won a Tony as the homosexual hair-
dresser Molina in Kiss of the Spiderwoman), the
unassuming Canadian actor is nonetheless intimi-
dated by the ghosts of his predecessors in the role.
Audience expectations aside, what endears his
character to Carver is "Tevye's ability to see both
sides of the coin — even when he doesn't have a
coin in his pocket," says the amiable actor.
After a 13-year hiatus from Stratford, Carver also
is playing Ned Lowenscroft in the world premiere of
Elizabeth Rex by Canadian writer Timothy Findley.

Stratford Schedule

The Diary of Anne Frank — This new adapta-
tion about the Holocaust's most famous victim is
based on a darker, more realistic version of the
diary. Opens June 1; closes Nov. 5.
Fiddler on the Roof — One of the world's most
beloved musicals, based on Sholom Aleichem's
stories and Arnold Ped's play Tevye and His
Daughters. Opens June 2; closes Nov. 4.
Collected Stories — Whose life is it anyway is
the key question raised when one writer's story is
appropriated by another in Donald Margulies'
Pulitzer Prize-nominated play. Opens July 28;
closes Sept. 2.
Hamlet — William Shakespeare's tragic tale of a
father's murder and a son's revenge. Opens May
29; closes Nov. 5.
The Three Musketeers — An adaptation of
Alexandre Dumas' popular 19th-century roman-
tic novel of swashbuckling adventure and
intrigue. Opens May 31; closes Nov. 4.
Tartuffe — Moliere's withering 17th-century
satire on religious hypocrisy rings true more than
300 years later. Opens Aug. 11; closes Nov. 3.
As You Like It — Shakespeare's romantic pastoral
comedy of banishment, disguise and lovers lost
and reunited. Opens May 30; closes Nov. 4.
Medea — Spurned by the husband whose life
she saved, the scorned wife plans a terrible
revenge in Euripedes' Greek tragedy. Opens June
28; closes Oct. 1.
Titus Andronicus — Shakespeare's earliest
tragedy as well as his bloodiest pits a proud,
flawed Roman warrior against a wily captive
queen. Opens June 27; closes Sept. 30.
Elizabeth Rex — This world premiere by
Canadian writer Timothy Findley takes place in
1601, when Queen Elizabeth comes to see a
performance of Shakespeare on the eve of an
execution. Opens June 29; closes Sept. 30.

A 2000 Season Oscar Wilde cele-
bration includes:

The Importance of Being Earnest — Oscar
Wilde's 1895 comic masterpiece satirizes English
society's concern with names and appearances.
Opens June 3; closes Nov. 4.
Patience in Concert — Gilbert and Sullivan's
musical satirizes Oscar Wilde and his circle.
Opens July 28; closes Oct. 13.
Oscar Remembered —
tragic downfall
is seen through the eyes of his lover, Lord Alfred
Douglas. Opens Sept. 15; closes Sept. 29.
A mini-festival of additional events and per-
formances marking the centenary year of Wilde's
death will be held throughout August.

— Fran Heller

5/26
2000

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