In this fiercely funny and heart wrenching one-woman tour-de-force based on her own life, writer/actor Roxana Ortega (best known for Nickelodeon’s The Casagrandes and The Groundlings) navigates the chaos of her mother’s mental decline with outrageous humor and unbreakable spirit. Playing everything from a mermaid-obsessed aunt to a prickly sherpa, Ortega takes us on a wild ride into an opera house, up a killer mountain, and through the people in her life that helped shape her greatest hopes and fears. Heartfelt and hilarious, Am I Roxie? explores duty, destiny, and how facing your darkest fears can reveal who you truly are.
Those of us taking care of our ailing and/or aging parents know the struggle to remain patient as their memories and language skills begin to fade. But as difficult as it is for her, Ortega gets right to the hilarity of what it means to parent your elders while questioning if you are losing your own mind by always trying to do the right thing. Commanding the stage from start to finish, she takes us on her own personal journey through fear and confusion from well-meaning family members and friends as she comes to grips with her own mind as she shifts from being cared-for to caregiver.
Directed with dignity and humor by Bernardo Cubría, Ortega’s autobiographical play lets us see into the dynamics of being raised in a conservative, guilt-inducing Latinx family, especially after she gets challenged emotionally and spiritually when her Chicano father dies suddenly outside a post office in Monterey, CA, leaving her dependent, Alzheimer’s-suffering Peruvian-born mother Carmen alone. But feeling like an outsider in the close-knit family of ten siblings, especially since her free-spirited outlook as a native-born American raised in Los Angeles has her living in a constant state of anxiety about everything and anything, how can she possibly take on total responsibility for her mother as the only unmarried sibling with no children? Accepting the obligation to take her mother in when she can no longer care for herself drives Ortega into various forms of therapy, guided by very distinct characters, portrayed by Ortega with spunk, unique vocalizations, and distinct physicality.
Scenic Designer Efren Delgadillo Jr. and Lighting Designer Pablo Santiago stick to shades of red and blue, while Projection Designer Yuki Izumihara lets us see into Roxie’s jumbled mind as well as how she interprets what her mother is imagining. Dressed in a blue jumpsuit by Costume Designer Jennifer Lynn Deck, Ortega moves freely from scene to scene as set pieces rotate into place as she moves into the front of the stage to speak directly to audience members or into the aisles to draw audience members even more closely into her spiritual struggles, increasing the immersive experience tenfold.
Am I Roxie?performances continue through October 5, 2025 on Wednesday – Thursday 7:30 p.m., Friday 8 p.m., Saturday 3 p.m. and 8 p.m., and Sunday 2 p.m. in the Gil Cates Theater at Geffen Playhouse, 10886 Le Conte Avenue, Los Angeles 90024. Two performances will be captioned in Spanish: Friday, September 26 at 8 p.m. and Sunday, October 5 at 2 p.m. Run time is 85 minutes without an intermission.
Tickets run $36 – $139, available by phone at 310.208.2028 or online at www.geffenplayhouse.org. Geffen Playhouse productions are intended for an adult audience; children under 10 years of age will not be admitted. This production contains sexual content, profanity, theatrical haze, and gunshot sound effects and is recommended for ages 12+
In 2018, New York-based National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene reclaimed Fiddler on the Roof as a piece of Jewish culture, translating the script and lyrics into Yiddish, the language that would have been spoken by the actual characters depicted in the original musical.Presented with English supertitles, the results were historic, praised as fresh, authentic, personal, and highly emotional. But the pandemic interrupted the show’s touring plans. Finally, The Soraya at Cal State Northridge was able to partner with the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene to bring Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish to the West Coast for the first time in a special concert version for three performances on September 13-14, the opening weekend of The Soraya’s 2025-26 Season.
Directed by Joel Grey (who stepped in to sing with the cast during the opening night finale), the concert version in Yiddish features many top-notch original cast members led by Steven Skybell as Tevye (currently starring as Herr Schultz in the Broadway revival of Cabaret for which he received a 2024 Tony nomination), with Jennifer Babiak (Golde), Rachel Zatcoff (Tsaytl), Yael Eden Chanukov (Hodl), Rosie Jo Neddy (Khave), Kirk Geritano (Motl), Drew Seigla (Pertshik), Griffith Frank (Fyedke/Ensemble), Samuel Druhora (Leyzer Volf), Lisa Fishman (Yente/Bobe Tsaytl), Bobby Underwood (Constable), Glenn Rosenblum (Rabbi/Ensemble), Jodi Snyder (Fruma Sara/Beylke), James Monroe Števko (Mendl/Ensemble), Mikhl Yashinsky (Nokhem/Mordkhe/Ensemble), John Reed (Avrom/Ensemble), Lauren Jeanne Thomas (Fiddler), and Carly Post (ensemble).
Spiritually thrilling and magnificently sung by each cast member, those of us of Eastern European Jewish descent who grew up with Yiddish-speaking relatives will certainly recognize the trials and tribulations told to us by our grandparents, or even our parents, who lived through the actual events from the early 20th Century when they were forced to flee their homeland. Thankfully all of mine made their way to the United States through New York, finally settling in Chicago and Detroit.
But like Tevye’s daughters who chose to stay behind with their husbands and not flee to America with Tevye (Tsaytl in Warsaw, Hodl in Siberia, and Khave in Krakow), I wonder what happened to all my relatives who stayed behind and were never heard from again. This feeling is shared during the heart-wrenching song “Vayt Fun Mayn Liber Heym” (“Far From The Home I Love”) sung by Hodl to Tevye as she prepares to depart by train to join her imprisoned fiancé Pertshik in Siberia, knowing she will never see or speak with her father, mother, and siblings again. How could anyone survive making a choice like that without modern means of staying in touch? For love, of course, the tie that binds everyone in Fiddler.
Musicians of note include violinist Lauren Jeanne Thomas who represents Tevye’s Jewish traditions each time she steps into a scene as The Fiddler, and Dmiti Zisl Slepovitch who plays an extraordinary clarinet solo during the “Wedding Dance” instrumental at the end of Act I, performed without the bottle dancers.
Upcoming dates for the National Yiddish Theatre Folksbiene Fiddler on the Roof in Yiddish concert production include a run at the Elgin Theatre in Toronto, Canada, from May 25 – June 7, 2026. More information and tickets at https://hgjewishtheatre.com/2025-2026-Fiddler-on-the-Roof.html