Actor Wayne Kennedy's greatest role was as father, on stage or off

On stage, actor Wayne Kennedy was always playing a father. Off stage, Wayne Kennedy was always being a father.

Kennedy’s signature roles, from among dozens of choices, were unquestionably two: Tevye, the Russian milkman with the five independent-minded daughters in “Fiddler on the Roof.” And Tateh, the entrepreneurial immigrant in “Ragtime” whose name in Yiddish literally means “father.”

Of Tevye, a character he played four times over 23 years, Kennedy once said: “It seems like it comes naturally out of my heart.”

Slideshow: Wayne Kennedy photos

I met Kennedy as the real-life kind of dad. The year was 2001, shortly after I had been tasked with covering the theater beat for The Denver Post. Kennedy was already the 10-year anchor of what was then called Boulder’s Dinner Theatre. My first