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Actress and teacher Joanna Merlin, original Tzeitel in Broadway’s ‘Fiddler,’ dies at 92
(JTA) — Joanna Merlin, a famed acting coach and casting director who early in her career as an actress created the role of Tevye’s daughter Tzeitel in the original Broadway production of “Fiddler on the Roof,”died Sunday in Los Angeles. She was 92.
NYU’s Graduate Acting program at the Tisch School of the Arts, where she became a member of the faculty in 1998, announced her passing on Monday.
Merlin was a student of the acting teacher Michael Chekhov and said to be the last surviving disciple still teaching his technique. Chekhov, a nephew of the playwright Anton Chekhov, was a student of Konstantin Stanislavski, putting Merlin in a direct line of influence with the Russian creator of the naturalistic acting technique that came to be known as “the system” (and, when adapted by the Jewish acting mavericks Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler, as “The Method”).
In an interview for the 2016 PBS documentary series “American Masters,” Merlin said she auditioned eight times before the director of “Fiddler,” Jerome Robbins, and creators Sheldon Harrnick and Jerry Bock were convinced she could handle the role of the daughter who ends up marrying Motel the tailor (a young Bette Midler later took over the role).
She also recalled how Robbins prepared the cast for their roles as Jews living in a 19th-century shtetl by talking about the world of the play, showing them paintings by Marc Chagall and taking them to a Hasidic wedding in Brooklyn.
“My own family actually came from a shtetl. My mother was actually born in a shtetl and my father was also born in Russia,” she recalled. “But a large portion of the cast was not Jewish, and so [Robbins] made sure that everybody felt as though they understood what that life was like.”
Merwin went on to other actor acting roles, including in the films “Sarah’s Key,” “Mystic Pizza,” “Fame” and “The Killing Fields,” and had a recurring part in the TV series “Law & Order: Special Victims Unit” as Judge Lena Petrovsky.
But she had even greater success as a casting director, working with the film directors Bernardo Bertolucci and James Ivory, and most closely with the legendary producer Harold Prince in the original Broadway productions of several classic Stephen Sondheim musicals, including “Company,” “Follies,” “A Little Night Music,” “Pacific Overtures,” “Sweeney Todd” and “Merrily We Roll Along.”
She was the founder and president emeritus of The Michael Chekhov Association, or MICHA, an acting school in New York City. One student, Broadway actress Julie Benko, paid tribute to her teacher in an Instagram post Monday. “I will not forget the breakthrough I had in her class,” said Benko, who won praise as the understudy to Lea Michele and Beanie Feldstein in the recent Broadway production of “Funny Girl” and stars in the forthcoming Barry Manilow musical “Harmony.” “I will miss her beautiful presence. I am so honored to have been a small part of her life.”
Born Joanna Ratner in Chicago in in 1931, she took her mother’s maiden name as a stage name. She acted in community theater before graduating from UCLA and later studied under Chekhov, a Russian exile who died in 1955. Merlin made her first screen appearance in 1956 as one of Jethro’s daughters in Cecil B. DeMille’s film “The Ten Commandments.” “Fiddler” debuted in 1964, and she left the cast before the end of its tour to take care of her two small children. She took to the more flexible schedule of being a casting director and teacher.
Merlin was the author, in 2001, of “Auditioning: An Actor-Friendly Guide.”
“I think that actors respond to casting directors who are supportive and encouraging, and that if they feel that the moment they walk in the room they’re being challenged, then it’s a turn-off,” Merlin told interviewer Terry Gross in 2001. “But it’s very helpful to an actor if they feel that you’re on their side. And indeed, casting directors are rooting for you. I mean, they want to cast the role. And so they’re rooting for every actor that walks in the door.”
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After False Dawns, Gazans Hope Trump Will Force End to Two-Year-Old War
Palestinians walk past a residential building destroyed in previous Israeli strikes, after Hamas agreed to release hostages and accept some other terms in a US plan to end the war, in Nuseirat, central Gaza Strip October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Mahmoud Issa
Exhausted Palestinians in Gaza clung to hopes on Saturday that US President Donald Trump would keep up pressure on Israel to end a two-year-old war that has killed tens of thousands and displaced the entire population of more than two million.
Hamas’ declaration that it was ready to hand over hostages and accept some terms of Trump’s plan to end the conflict while calling for more talks on several key issues was greeted with relief in the enclave, where most homes are now in ruins.
“It’s happy news, it saves those who are still alive,” said 32-year-old Saoud Qarneyta, reacting to Hamas’ response and Trump’s intervention. “This is enough. Houses have been damaged, everything has been damaged, what is left? Nothing.”
GAZAN RESIDENT HOPES ‘WE WILL BE DONE WITH WARS’
Ismail Zayda, 40, a father of three, displaced from a suburb in northern Gaza City where Israel launched a full-scale ground operation last month, said: “We want President Trump to keep pushing for an end to the war, if this chance is lost, it means that Gaza City will be destroyed by Israel and we might not survive.
“Enough, two years of bombardment, death and starvation. Enough,” he told Reuters on a social media chat.
“God willing this will be the last war. We will hopefully be done with the wars,” said 59-year-old Ali Ahmad, speaking in one of the tented camps where most Palestinians now live.
“We urge all sides not to backtrack. Every day of delay costs lives in Gaza, it is not just time wasted, lives get wasted too,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a Gaza City businessman displaced with members of his family in central Gaza Strip.
After two previous ceasefires — one near the start of the war and another earlier this year — lasted only a few weeks, he said; “I am very optimistic this time, maybe Trump’s seeking to be remembered as a man of peace, will bring us real peace this time.”
RESIDENT WORRIES THAT NETANYAHU WILL ‘SABOTAGE’ DEAL
Some voiced hopes of returning to their homes, but the Israeli military issued a fresh warning to Gazans on Saturday to stay out of Gaza City, describing it as a “dangerous combat zone.”
Gazans have faced previous false dawns during the past two years, when Trump and others declared at several points during on-off negotiations between Hamas, Israel and Arab and US mediators that a deal was close, only for war to rage on.
“Will it happen? Can we trust Trump? Maybe we trust Trump, but will Netanyahu abide this time? He has always sabotaged everything and continued the war. I hope he ends it now,” said Aya, 31, who was displaced with her family to Deir Al-Balah in the central Gaza Strip.
She added: “Maybe there is a chance the war ends at October 7, two years after it began.”
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Mass Rally in Rome on Fourth Day of Italy’s Pro-Palestinian Protests
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator waves a Palestinian flag during a national protest for Gaza in Rome, Italy, October 4, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Claudia Greco
Large crowds assembled in central Rome on Saturday for the fourth straight day of protests in Italy since Israel intercepted an international flotilla trying to deliver aid to Gaza, and detained its activists.
People holding banners and Palestinian flags, chanting “Free Palestine” and other slogans, filed past the Colosseum, taking part in a march that organizers hoped would attract at least 1 million people.
“I’m here with a lot of other friends because I think it is important for us all to mobilize individually,” Francesco Galtieri, a 65-year-old musician from Rome, said. “If we don’t all mobilize, then nothing will change.”
Since Israel started blocking the flotilla late on Wednesday, protests have sprung up across Europe and in other parts of the world, but in Italy they have been a daily occurrence, in multiple cities.
On Friday, unions called a general strike in support of the flotilla, with demonstrations across the country that attracted more than 2 million, according to organizers. The interior ministry estimated attendance at around 400,000.
Italy’s right-wing government has been critical of the protests, with Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni suggesting that people would skip work for Gaza just as an excuse for a longer weekend break.
On Saturday, Meloni blamed protesters for insulting graffiti that appeared on a statue of the late Pope John Paul II outside Rome’s main train station, where Pro-Palestinian groups have been holding a protest picket.
“They say they are taking to the streets for peace, but then they insult the memory of a man who was a true defender and builder of peace. A shameful act committed by people blinded by ideology,” she said in a statement.
Israel launched its Gaza offensive after Hamas terrorists staged a cross border attack on October 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking 251 people hostage.
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Hamas Says It Agrees to Release All Israeli Hostages Under Trump Gaza Plan
Smoke rises during an Israeli military operation in Gaza City, as seen from the central Gaza Strip, October 2, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Dawoud Abu Alkas
Hamas said on Friday it had agreed to release all Israeli hostages, alive or dead, under the terms of US President Donald Trump’s Gaza proposal, and signaled readiness to immediately enter mediated negotiations to discuss the details.