Alexandra Silber Performs Her New Audible book, After Anatevka

What happens to a favorite character once the story ends or the curtain closes?

That question gripped actress Alexandra Silber, setting her off on a years-long journey, from stage to page to stage again, and culminated last week in an Audible production at the Minetta Lane Theatre. The performance, which blended passages from Silber's novel After Anatevka with original music to create a live audio recording, was a “dream come true” for the theater veteran.

After starring in a London West End production of Fiddler on the Roof, Silber came to care deeply about her character, Hodel. The role of the family's second-eldest daughter, who boldly leaves her family and her small Russian village to follow her fiancé to Siberia, never to be heard from again, “took over my mind, heart and bone marrow,” she told the rapt New York audience. So Silber decided to find out, or at least imagine, what came next for the headstrong young woman. The actress penned Hodel's sequel, After Anatevka, “quite literally between scenes” while acting in her next production before getting it published in 2017.

The Minetta Lane performance of After Anatevka featured songs from both the original Fiddler and new music based on Silber's story, interspersed with readings from the book.