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Fiddler is, of course, an iconic story, but it's not just a Jewish story
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It's really the quintessential immigrant story. With World Refugee Day, this was a perfect time to try to bring refugees together
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people who could come to see the show and watch it through the lens of their own experience
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This afternoon, we have a select group of refugees who have come to the theater early
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There are three stations set up. We have an area where they're being photographed by Gillian Laub, who is a world-renowned photojournalist
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We have them being what's called live sketched by Christopher Knoxin. He is interviewing them and then he sketches them
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And we also have them being interviewed, talking a little bit about their experiences
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This is a place where we want them to feel seen and welcomed and heard
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We ran away from India, being a gay couple. We chose love over everything else
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And we came here because we had the same situation of the problem in Venezuela
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I came here only knowing how to say my name and that's it
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We're here in my dress room, Tevje's dress room, stage 42. I just want to point out these are all pictures of my ancestors
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who came from Suvalchi, Poland, Warsaw, Poland, the honoring of my own ancestors and telling of this story
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And I hope that the audience goes on this journey, with us of joy and love, and there is heartbreak
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but in the end there's hope for a better tomorrow. Everybody on that stage could be in the audience
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It's a tale of running and hoping and praying and surviving. I hope they take the message of hope Seeing their journey in our show will arouse very strong feelings
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of sadness and hope. They are going to learn a lot about the process
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their immigrants experience and of course they are going to to have this knowledge with them, to help them
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to overcome this process of being an immigrant. I want to talk about your own experience, getting to the United States
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Luis Miranda will be moderating a town hall where everyone will get to share how they felt watching it
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what it seemed like to them vis-à-vis their own experience of having left their countries
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And it felt like a way that we could somehow turn the volume up on the conversation around immigration and the refugee crisis
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What you saw on stage is literally what is happening right now in America
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We need to stand up and step up and stop what is happening. I am a Mexican mom
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I've been in this country for 25 years. I am afraid. What I saw in this presentation, it's really repeating history
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Let me tell you knowing my people and knowing my community that the new American dream for that
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then is just going back to our homelands. We are talking about human beings
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So let's respect that. It's our time to step up now. I can tell you there's nothing more powerful
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than working with one person who's trying to argue that they have the right
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to stay in this country. What I need to say is never give up
