Sheldon Harnick stands out in musical theater history as the renowned lyricist of such classics as “Fiddler on the Roof,” “She Loves Me,” and “Fiorello!” Forty years since its New York premiere, “ Fiddler” is back again on Broadway in a revival starring Alfred Molina.

MW: Did you and composer Jerry Bock have a specific way of writing songs?

SH: Jerry would write music for what he thought would be appropriate moments for songs. Then I’d listen to the music looking for two things: what I thought were terrific pieces of music, and for music that seemed to go my ideas for songs.

MW: Is “Fiddler” viewed differently by audiences today than in 1964?

SH: No different. I saw the show yesterday and the audience’s responses were the same as they were forty ago. They laughed and cried in the same places. The situations that are dramatized in Fiddler are universal, and they still exist today. People are still human beings.

MW: What was it like to work with director Jerome Robbins on the original production?

SH: He was obsessed with the show, and he made us rewrite and rewrite. When he was six years old, his parents took him to Poland, and those villages were then obliterated in World War II. He decided that “Fiddler” was his opportunity to put that shtetl culture onstage, to give it an additional life. He was a man with a goal: to create a show that would last at least 25 years. Now its 40 years.

MW: Who was your inspiration to go into lyric writing?

SH: My mother. She didn’t know that she was encouraging me to do that. At every Bar Mitzvah or anniversary, she’d write some doggerel verse. I discovered that I really enjoyed it. People told me I had a gift for it.

MW: What was your first experience in the professional theater?

SH: It was in Chicago in an off-the-loop play. They needed some extras. They gave me a toga and I was Greek. I can’t remember the title. It was closed after one performance by the fire department. Good thing because it was dreadful. That was my first experience in the professional theater.

MW: Have you ever tried to write pop songs?

SH: Yes, I don’t have the talent for it. Early on, I met Yip Harburg, who was my God when I came to New York. He sent me to a friend of his, Bill Springer, who had written pop hits. He wanted someone to write lyrics for his music. I played him a lot of my stuff. And at the end of the afternoon, he said I like what you do, but I don’t think you could write a commercial lyric if your life depended on it. My thinking was I’ll go my own way as a songwriter in the theater, and hope that something I write will meet up public acceptance outside of the show.

MW: Did you and Jerry Bock have a specific way of writing?

SH: Jerry would write music for what he thought would be appropriate moments for songs. Then I’d take his tapes and listen for two things: what I thought were terrific pieces of music, and for music that seemed to go with ideas I had for songs. It was easier not to have to invent the form of the lyric.

MW: Are audience reactions to “Fiddler” different today than they were in 1964?

SH: No different. I saw the show yesterday and the audience responses were the same as forty ago. They laughed and cried in the same places. The situations that are dramatized in Fiddler are universal, and they still exist today. People are still human beings.

MW: What was it like to work with Jerome Robbins on the original production?

SH: He was obsessed with the show, and made us rewrite and rewrite. When he was six years old, his parents took him to Poland, and he always remembered it as a very emotional visit. In World War II, those villages were obliterated. He decided that Fiddler was his opportunity to put that shtetl culture onstage, to give it an additional life. He was a man with a goal: to create a show that would last at least 25 years. Now its 40 years.

MW: What do you think of today’s new Broadway musicals?

SH: I think there’s a lot of wonderful stuff out there, but it’s now different. In the 1950s, lyricists were consciously trying to be more sophisticated and literate. Now we’re in the Andrew Lloyd Webber vain, trying to hit bigger, broader audiences. As Peter Stone pointed out, this might be necessary cause it takes so long to pay off a show now. It has to run at least several years. I enjoyed “Hairspray” a great deal. It had great vitality. I liked “Wicked” a lot too. I enjoyed the spectacle of “Bombay Dreams.” Otherwise it was a Las Vegas experience. But it was fun. I generally find things to enjoy.

MW: How did you get involved with Jerry Bock?

SH: I met him socially through a performer named Jack Cassidy. There was a show on the road in trouble, “Shangri-La,” and they needed someone to come in and do revisions. I came in and met Jack Cassidy. He was a close friend of Bock, and we met socially. After that, I learned that Bock had split up with his regular lyricist. Bock’s publisher had connections with the producer of “The Body Beautiful,” and they were looking for a new team to do it. And we got the job.

MW: What was the inspiration to create “Fiorello!”?

SH: The inspiration for “Fiorello!” was a director named Arthur Penn. Arthur thought Fiorello was such a colorful character that he wanted to do a documentary for television, and then thought it should be a musical. The project went to Hal Prince. His partner, Bobby Griffith, set out to find a book-writer and songwriting team. They hired Jerry Bock immediately as a composer. They didn’t hire a lyricist because what they found was they’d approach people to do the book, and they’d want to do both book and lyrics. They went through three or four book-writers and they weren’t happy with anybody. Then they went to Jerome Weidman. They liked his book, but not his lyrics. Then they had about three or four young lyricists in mind. They asked Jerry and I if we’d write some songs on speculation.

MW: What’s distinctive about your musicals, as compared to other major songwriters of your period?

SH: That would be up to someone else to judge. What comes to mind is that Jerry and I loved to try and recreate the sound of a period musically. So that if we did a show that was in the 1920s, the music by and large was meant to give the audience the feel of the period, the sounds of a Charleston or a Fox Trot. We tried to create a feeling for the time and place in “She Loves Me.” The prologue is very Hungarian. Also, but this is true of many writers, I try to be lyrically true to character. And to situation. And to not worry about getting something that sounded like a contemporary pop hit out of the show.

MW: What do you think of David Leveaux’s direction of the new “ Fiddler”?

SH: I think it’s wonderful. It’s a different look.

MW: Why was the beggar onstage so much?

SH: In rehearsals, the beggar was onstage too much. But in other places it seemed perfectly valid, like a different take on an aspect of the show.

MW: Why has the show survived for so long?

SH: What makes the show go from generation to generation is how it deals with tensions between parents and children. Parents grow up with values. When children grow up their follow values, but just as often as not, they go their own way and adopt new values. Sometimes their values can be abhorrent and can cause tension and disappointment and anger and heartbreak cause of the way they’re growing up.

MW: Why were plans to make a new television film of “Fiddler” starring Victor Garber terminated a few years ago?

SH: Before 9/11, it was going to be filmed in Czechoslovakia. They found a village, so they wouldn’t have to build sets. But after 9/11, they were told that if they were going to Europe, they’d be obligated to take out war insurance, which would cost millions, and hire armed guards to control the set. And the producers thought this was no way to make a film. It’s not cancelled, but deferred until things calm down.

MW: Why was Barbara Barrie replaced by Nancy Opel as Yente during the previews of “Fiddler”?

SH: Barbara began to feel that she was miscast. I tended to disagree. That’ ;s the feeling she got. She grew more and more uncomfortable in the role. She began to have differences with the director, and they couldn’t work together.

MW: What was the inspiration for adding a new song for Yente?

SH: David Leveaux pointed out that almost every song is related to tradition, preservation or changing of tradition, but you’ve ignored the matchmaker and that tradition is changing. He said I wish you would write a song for that character about how that tradition is changing. Jerry and I hadn’t worked together since 1970. I was afraid it was going to be a very strange collaboration. I went over Jerry’s apartment, and we were both relieved to find that it was like yesterday was 1970.

MW: Why have you and Jerry Bock not written a new musical together in 34 years?

SH: We had severe artistic differences regarding the director of “The Rothschilds.” I felt, as many on the staff did, that the director should be fired. Bock was a big defender of him. He was fired, and there was a great strain between Jerry and I. The result was Jerry wanting to be a lyricist. He’s a very clever lyricist and he’s been doing work of his own.

MW: How did you go about creating the lyrics “Daidle deedle daidle daidle daidle deedle daidle dum?”

SH: Bock and I had gone downtown to see a benefit for a Hebrew actors union. They were raising funds. We went there cause we thought there’d be actors useful for the “Fiddler” cast. At the show, two women came out, and they did a Hasidic chant with no words, all syllables. All these very interesting sounds. Bock was enchanted by what he heard, and wrote the music to “If I Were a Rich Man” while inventing different sounds. So we thought wouldn’t it be fun to preserve some the Hasidic chant sounds. The problem was that I could not duplicate the authentic sound. I looked for syllables to represent the sounds. Daidle kind of sounded like it. I played it for Zero Mostel, and he said I can do the authentic chanting. So I said do that. When you hear Zero Mostel on the record, the sounds are more or less authentic.

MW: Looking back, how do you feel about the following original lyrics from “Fiorello!” which are sung by the character of Marie in the song “I’ll Marry the Very Next Man”: “And if we likes me, Who cares how frequently he strikes me?”

SH: In 1959, people understood that Marie was very angry with Fiorello, that he regarded her as no more than a piece of office furniture. So she wanted to quit. When she sang, she was being sardonic and not realistic. Over the years, especially as feminism has raised everybody’s consciousness to the fact that battered women was not a joke, this was a reality we all had to face. Over the years, when I’d hear that line, it’d make me very uncomfortable. Then I saw a 25^th anniversary production at Yale, and several women booed at the actress playing Marie when she sang those lines, and I realized it was time to change the lyric.

MW: What shows of yours would you like to see revived in the future, be it on Broadway or at Encores

SH: We’re hoping that there will be a “Fiorello!” revival. There have been discussions about it. I hope it goes forward. It might happen soon at Papermill. Their new artistic director is the son of the show’s original choreographer. “She Loves Me” had a wonderful revival ten years ago which was then transferred to Broadway. I’d also like to see “The Apple Tree” done with someone like Kristen Chenoweth.

MW: Who would you like to see cast as Fiorello?

SH: Nathan Lane. Physically, he looks like Fiorello. And he’s so funny. Vocally, he can handle the score. It wouldn’t offer him comic opportunities, but it’s the kind of role that people don’t know him for.