So far, "Fiddler on the Roof" has sold about 20 percent more tickets than the other five plays at this year's Utah Shakespearean Festival, said Amanda Caraway, festival public-relations director.

Whatever the audience members' religious persuasions, the musical's universal themes seem to be reaching across time, distance and religion. The 1960s-era Broadway play, set in 1905 czarist Russia, is winning rave reviews from theatergoers for its memorable music and touching story.

"It's a story of endurance and hope," said audience member Nick Hales, a Salt Lake City attorney who is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. "The culture in Utah is very family-oriented, and it's a family-oriented play. I think there's a lot of synergy between that and the Mormon culture."

The show marks the first time the Tony Award-winning professional company has produced "Fiddler." But the musical was introduced to Cedar City audiences in a 1970 Southern Utah University production directed by festival founder Fred Adams while the show was still a Broadway hit.

The play's narrator, Tevye, must deal with his daughters' tradition-breaking marriages, while his family struggles to hold tight to cultural and religious customs. It's a story about relationships between parents and children and husbands and wives, as well as a tale about religious persecution. At its core, it's about change.

"It's about what's human in us as opposed to any other identifying label," said Kathleen Conlin, USF associate artistic director, who helped select this year's plays. "The story of 'Fiddler' resonates with a lot of people. You don't have to be Jewish to understand it."

Some audience members might not understand why characters touch a mezuzah on the door frame as they enter and exit their homes, or understand the symbolism behind the fringes, or tzitzit, that hang from under the male Jewish characters' clothes. But they can still fully appreciate "Fiddler's" underlying themes, said director Jim Christian, a theater professor at Weber State University who is LDS.

As a widower who raised a daughter alone, Christian relates to Tevye's relationships with his daughters. "In directing a play, one of the most important things is to figure out what the basis of the story is, and for me, the story is about a family," he said. "You could take that story and set it in 100 different cultures and it would still resonate."

Mormon audiences might relate to the Jewish culture in other ways, as members of the younger, American-rooted religion also endured religious persecution in its founding years. "While there are a lot of divisions, there are also a lot of commonalities," Christian said. "Utah itself was largely founded because there was a people who were driven from their homes because of their religious beliefs."

The director and the actor who plays Tevye, Matthew Henerson, who is Jewish, learned more about such commonalities by working together on "Fiddler." Christian and the rest of the cast participated in a Friday night Shabbat dinner to better appreciate Jewish traditions. It was important to the director and the cast to portray the characters as real people, rather than as cute caricatures, no matter how exotic Judaism might seem in southern Utah. About 60 percent of festival theatergoers are from Utah, Caraway said.

"This is, to one extent or another, my great-grandfather's story," said Henerson of his ancestor who emigrated from Ukraine in 1912.

East High School student Megan Burnett, 16, said the play holds something for everyone. She recently traveled from Salt Lake City to Cedar City to see how the show compared to her junior high school's production several years ago, in which the Mormon girl played Yente, the matchmaker.

Michal Hales, who co-directed the school play, went with Burnett and her family to see the professional production. "It's such a great message about the traditions and the breaking of them," said Hales, the high school teacher. "I think the morals are the same."

Tradition

"Fiddler on the Roof" plays at 2 and 8 p.m. in repertory through Aug. 30 (except Sundays) at the Utah Shakespearean Festival, 351 W. Center St., Cedar City. Tickets $16-$60, at 800-PLAYTIX, or www.bard.org. Also playing: "The Taming of the Shrew," "Othello," "Two Gentlemen of Verona,""The School for Wives" and "Cyrano de Bergerac."