When the curtain opens on “Fiddler on the Roof” at Nanuet High School this weekend, it will reveal an Anatevka unlike any other.

Tevye, the dairyman who dreams of riches that will give him the time to sit in the synagogue and pray, will be played by a rabbi’s son, senior David Pernick.

His wife, Golde – who prays for good matches for her daughters – is Divya Innocent, a senior whose parents were matched in an arranged marriage in India.

Motel, the meek tailor who finds his spine when he fears losing the girl he loves, will be played by Kris Siriban, another first-generation American, whose parents emigrated from the Philippines and count VHS tapes of “Fiddler on the Roof” among their wedding gifts.

“STLD to the stage! STLD on stage, please,” shouts director Paula Correale at a recent rehearsal at Hendrick Hudson High School.

That’s Scarecrow, Tinman, Lion and Dorothy. And this, of course, is “The Wizard of Oz,” on stage at Hendrick Hudson this weekend.

There’s a lot more to this show than STLD.

If you only have the MGM film to go by, you might be scratching your head when you open the program and see Poppies, Jitterbugs, a Heavenly Chorus, Snowflakes and Winkies.

Poppies and Jitterbugs and Winkies! Oh, my!

Just spoke with  Dina Madden at Mamaroneck High School. They’ve settled on “Footloose” for their spring senior musical. Dates are April 23, 24, and 25 at 8 p.m. Tickets are $12 and $8. The show will be directed by Stacie Moye and produced by Fran Barski. Moye steps into Cal Chiang’s considerable shoes; he’ll direct “Sugar”—the “Some Like It Hot” musical — at Pearl River this year. For info on “Footloose,” call Madden at 914-220-3140.

Got word this morning that Peekskill will present “Guys & Dolls” on April 24 at 7:30 p.m. and April 25 at 2 and 7:30 p.m.

For those of you keeping score, that’s White Plains, Edgemont, Sleepy Hollow, Albertus Magnus and Peekskill doing the Damon Runyan musical.

A casting search is underway for the role of “Eugene Jerome” in the upcoming revival of Neil Simon’s award-winning play BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS, coming to Broadway this fall at a theatre to be announced.

The revival of BRIGHTON BEACH MEMOIRS will be directed by David Cromer (The Adding Machine, Our Town). Rehearsals begin in September 2009. Preview and opening night dates are to be announced.

It starts simply, “Dancing at Lughnasa,” Brian Friel’s memory play, now getting a first-rate production at Antrim Playhouse in Wesley Hills through March 22.

A boy enters in silence and, one by one, five women follow suit, each greeting him in her own particular way. There is a lot of love in this thatched-roof cottage outside Ballybeg, Ireland.

The first words are spoken by that boy, now a man, remembering that long-ago cottage when he was 7.

“When I cast my mind back to that summer of 1936,” says the narrator, Michael, “different kinds of memories offer themselves to me.”

Purchase College’s  Conservatory of Theatre Arts & Film presents “A Night of New Plays” on Wednesday, March 11 from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. in the Dance Building’s Dance Theatre Lab. The even is free to the public and ech play, written by students, will be followed by a Q&A.

Here, from a release, is a brief description of the works:

“The News Anchors” by Nannette Lipinski: Naked News Anchors? A Sportscaster Versus Weatherman feud? Wild and Crazy News Loving Monkeys? Step inside the madcap world of a TV newsroom.

“We Are Not Alone” by Dan Regelski, a postmodern. Aliens? Vacuum Cleaners? What else is really out there?

With a wink and a nod, “How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying” tells the story of a window washer, J. Pierrepont Finch – that’s F-I-N-C-H – who ascends the corporate ladder at World Wide Wickets, thanks to a handy little book that gives the musical its title.

Some might look at the show – on stage this weekend at John F. Kennedy Catholic High School in Somers – as a mere diversion, offering nothing more than such catchy songs as “Been a Long Day,” “The Company Way” and “Brotherhood of Man.”

But in the midst of the global economic downturn, Finch might just be on to something. Can we learn anything from old Ponty?

In Stephen Schwartz’s musical “Pippin,” a prince travels far and wide, searching for his place in the world, his “corner of the sky.”

At Clarkstown High School North this weekend and next, that journey will take the young prince farther than most productions, over a vast landscape of theater styles.

Director Tim Reid and his team of Cue & Curtain actors, designers and theater students have added theatrical layers they’ve talked about in the classroom.

“The students and I wanted to put our own interpretation on the show,” Reid says. “I have a student making commedia dell’arte masks as an independent study and another student studying commedia movement and helping me to direct that piece of it. Another young lady is working on shadow puppets.”

He’s a city kid living in the sticks and missing rock ‘n’ roll. She’s the preacher’s rebellious daughter.

Welcome to “Footloose,” the spring musical at Somers High School, based on the Kevin Bacon movie of the same name.

Sophomore Thomas Oliverio, 15, plays Ren; senior Amy Politi, 18, plays Ariel.

“She seems kind of rebellious, but I think she’s just misunderstood,” Politi says. “She wants different things than her father wants.”

As the preacher’s daughter, she’s in the spotlight, and her rebellion is embarrassing to Rev. Moore, played by sophomore Simon M.P. O’Keefe.

To most observers, “Hello, Dolly!” is about a matchmaker who comes to Yonkers to find a wife for hay and feed magnate Horace Vandergelder.

But to Ariane Prache and Tina Elliott, 17-year-old seniors at Pleasantville High School, “Hello, Dolly!” is about a dancing horse.

“Our set designer told me we needed a horse for this show,” recalls Prache. “I immediately thought of Tina to help me because she loves horses and she works with them.”

With a few tips about construction, the girls got to work in Prache’s basement, using chicken wire, wood and papier-maché to craft a proud pony in just about two weeks.

I’ll have a story about Nanuet’s very diverse production of “Fiddler on the Roof” on Tuesday, but director Jack Gremli says some theatrical friends came through, bigtime, for his production.

“Fieldstone Secondary School did ‘Fiddler’ last year,” he says. “They gave us 55 costumes intact. We had to expand a few of them because they’re a middle school, but it was great.”

“And Blind Brook High School gave us 70 props from their production last year.”

“It’s really the way theater should be,” he says.

Tim Reid, the director at Clarkstown High School North, is not a superstitious man.

This year’s production of “Pippin,” which you can read about in Monday’s editions of The Journal News and right here on my blog, is a long way from the Lambeth Walk and last year’s “Me and My Girl,” a production that was beset — on consecutive nights — with fire drills and blackouts and pitfalls beyond anyone’s control that forced one of the performances to be canceled and moved to another night.

At a rehearsal I visited recently, Reid wouldn’t hear talk of curses.

“Nothing’s going to happen,” he told his students. “I refuse to submit to that. It’s live theater. Things happen with live theater. That’s what makes it exciting.”

Says the man who scheduled his opening night for Friday the 13th.

The Rogue Players, the senior troupe of the Childrens Shakespeare Theater in Palisades, presents “Othello,” March 6, 13 and 14 at 8, and March 7 at 4 at The Palisades Presbyterian Church, 171 Washington Spring Road in Palisades. Tickets: $12 adults, $10 seniors and students, $8 kids 14 and under. Call 845-365-9709.

I’ve been all over the map this week: Dobbs Ferry for “Seussical,” Sleepy Hollow for “Guys & Dolls,” Blind Brook for “The King & I,” Westlake for “Bye Bye, Birdie.” Today, I’ll be at Clarkstown South for “Cabaret” and Ardsley for “The Producers.” Tomorrow, I start at Fox Lane for “Bells Are Ringing” and then head to Tuckahoe for “Once on This Island.”

Before I head to rehearsals, I’m writing up stories on “Hello, Dolly!” at Pleasantville and Clarkstown North’s “Pippin,” not to be confused with North Rockland’s “Pippin.”