David C. Wilkinson, 66, of the North Side died Sunday, March 21, of lung cancer at his home. Born in Texas, Mr. Wilkinson was reared in a small town in Tennessee. While a premed student at the University of Texas, Mr. Wilkinson took up dancing as a hobby. It soon became his life’s work. He came to Chicago in the 1970s, performing for several years at the former Candlelight Dinner Theater in Summit. He was the rooftop fiddler in “Fiddler on the Roof” and a muleteer in “Man of La Mancha.” Mr. Wilkinson also was a choreographer and stage manager, moving around the country and abroad for local theater productions in Missouri, Iowa, California, Indiana, Denmark and Russia “He was the gypsy of the show,” said his friend, actress and singer Dolores Rothenberger. “It kind of means somebody who travels around and is really in on the business. When he was in a show I was in, I always felt everything was going to be fine.” Mr. Wilkinson had no next of kin, but many close friends. Services will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Blake-Lamb Funeral Home, 1035 N. Dearborn St., Chicago.
