The story centers on Tevye, a milkman in the village of Anatevka, who attempts to maintain his Jewish religious and cultural traditions as outside influences encroach upon his family's lives.

[1] Fiddler on the Roof is based on a series of stories by Sholem Aleichem about his character Tevye the Dairyman, which he wrote in Yiddish between 1894 and 1914 about Jewish life in a village in the Pale of Settlement of Imperial Russia at the turn of the 20th century.

Other critics considered that it was too culturally sanitized, "middlebrow" and superficial; Philip Roth, writing in The New Yorker, called it shtetl kitsch.

[3][4] The show found the right balance for its time, even if not entirely authentic, to become "one of the first popular post-Holocaust depictions of the vanished world of Eastern European Jewry".

[5] The writers and Robbins considered naming the musical Tevye, before landing on a title suggested by various paintings by Marc Chagall (Green Violinist (1924), Le Mort (1924), The Fiddler (1912)) that also inspired the original set design.

[4] Tevye, a poor Jewish milkman with five daughters, explains the customs of the Jews in the Russian shtetl of Anatevka in 1905, where their lives are as precarious as the perch of a fiddler on a roof ("Tradition").

Yente, the village matchmaker, arrives to tell Golde that Lazar Wolf, the wealthy butcher, a widower older than Tevye, wants to wed Tzeitel, the eldest daughter.

The men dismiss Perchik as a radical, but Tevye invites him home for the Sabbath meal and offers him food and a room in exchange for tutoring his two youngest daughters.

They disrupt the party, damaging the wedding gifts and wounding Perchik, who attempts to fight back, and wreak more destruction in the village.

[4] The cast included Zero Mostel as Tevye the milkman, Maria Karnilova as his wife Golde (both won a Tony for their performances), Beatrice Arthur as Yente the matchmaker, Austin Pendleton as Motel, Bert Convy as Perchik the student revolutionary, Gino Conforti as the fiddler, and Julia Migenes as Hodel.

Carol Sawyer was Fruma Sarah, Adrienne Barbeau took a turn as Hodel, and Pia Zadora played the youngest daughter, Bielke.

Both Peg Murray and Dolores Wilson made extended appearances as Golde, while other stage actors who have played Tevye include Herschel Bernardi, Theodore Bikel and Harry Goz (in the original Broadway run), and Leonard Nimoy.

A second Broadway revival opened on July 9, 1981, and played for a limited run (53 performances) at Lincoln Center's New York State Theater.

In June 2014, to celebrate the show's 50th anniversary, a gala celebration and reunion was held at the Town Hall in New York City to benefit National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene, with appearances by many of the cast members of the various Broadway productions and the 1971 film, as well as Sheldon Harnick, Chita Rivera, Karen Ziemba, Joshua Bell, Jerry Zaks and others.

The cast starred Danny Burstein as Tevye, with Jessica Hecht as Golde, Alexandra Silber as Tzeitel, Adam Kantor as Motel, Ben Rappaport as Perchik, Samantha Massell as Hodel and Melanie Moore as Chava.

[42] A revival played at the Menier Chocolate Factory from November 23, 2018, until March 9, 2019, directed by Trevor Nunn and starring Andy Nyman as Tevye and Judy Kuhn as Golde.

[45][46] A revival played at the Regent's Park Open Air Theatre from July 27 to September 28, 2024, directed by Jordan Fein, starring Adam Dannheisser as Tevye, Lara Pulver as Golde, Liv Andrusier as Tzeitel, Georgia Bruce as Hodel, Hannah Bristow as Chava, Beverley Klein as Yente, Dan Wolff as Motel and Daniel Krikler as Perchik.

[49] A review by Mark Lawson in The Guardian gave it five stars out of five and praised its use of the outdoor setting its focus on "the tradition of deflective Jewish humour" and an ending that invites "a broader reflection of displacement and refugee status".

[52] The show toured the UK again in 2013 and 2014 starring Paul Michael Glaser as Tevye with direction and choreography by Craig Revel Horwood.

[53] A revival played at Chichester Festival Theatre from July 10 to September 2, 2017, directed by Daniel Evans and starring Omid Djalili as Tevye and Tracy-Ann Oberman as Golde.

[64] The cast included Mary Stout, Susan Cella, Bill Nolte, Erik Liberman, Rena Strober, and Stephen Lee Anderson.

[66] The cast included Jackie Hoffman as Yente, Steven Skybell as Tevye, Daniel Kahn as Pertshik, Stephanie Lynne Mason as Hodel and Raquel Nobile as Shprintze.

Musical staging was by Staś Kmieć (based on the original choreography by Robbins), with set design by Beowulf Boritt, costumes by Ann Hould-Ward, sound by Dan Moses Schreier and lighting by Peter Kaczorowski.

[77][78] Un violon sur le toît was produced in French at Paris's théâtre Marigny from November 1969 to May 1970, resuming from September to January 1971 (a total of 292 performances) with Ivan Rebroff as Tevye and Maria Murano as Golde.

[80] An Italian version, Il violinista sul tetto, with lyrics sung in Yiddish and the orchestra on stage also serving as chorus, was given a touring production in 2004, with Moni Ovadia as Tevye and director; it opened at Teatro Municipale Valli in Reggio Emilia.

The remastered CD includes two recordings not on the original album, the bottle dance from the wedding scene and "Rumor" performed by Beatrice Arthur.

[89] As of 2020, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and producers Dan Jinks and Aaron Harnick were planning a new film adaptation of the musical, with Thomas Kail directing and co-producing, and Steven Levenson penning the screenplay.

[98] The second episode of Muppets Tonight, in 1996, featured Garth Brooks doing a piece of "If I were a Rich Man" in which he kicks several chickens off the roof.

[117] In 2015 a displaced persons camp southwest of Kyiv named Anatevka was built by Chabad Rabbi Moshe Azman to house the Jews fleeing the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine.

[118][119] Fiddler's original Broadway production in 1964 was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, including Best Musical, score, and book, and Robbins won for best direction and choreography.