LEANDRA ACOSTA, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT (she/her), is a graduate of Rider University with degrees in dance performance and arts administration. During her time performing at Rider, she was awarded both the Dance Merit Scholarship and Mildred S. Hawkins Dance Scholarship and helped adopt the Dance Mentorship Program. She is grateful to have had the opportunity to work with so many fantastic choreographers during her time performing at Rider including: Kate Ladenheim, Randy James, Angela Cusumano, Merli Guerra, Jennifer Gladney, Robson Alves, Lynn Neuman, and Ryan Davis. She was recently featured as a choreographer for the 2023 Senior Dance Capstone performance, Acknowledgements. In her role as Associate Director, Leandra creates programs for and manages the social media pages for the Department of Performing Arts and Westminster Choir College.
SUSAN SHIPLETT ASHBAKER, MUSIC DIRECTOR AND CONDUCTOR. Professor/Director of Westminster Opera Theatre for Westminster Choir College at Rider University and Director for the CoOPERAtive Program at Westminster brings over 40 years of experience in the performing arts. She is in demand as a master class presenter, having taught recently at the Denyce Graves Foundation, Seagle Festival, NATS Eastern Conference, University of Miami, Montclair University, and Rutgers University, among others.
Ms. Ashbaker was affiliated with Tri-Cities Opera for 5 years; 4 as General and Artistic Director, and 1 as Artistic Director, and “transformed the company in every way imaginable,” according to the former Board Chair. Additionally, Ms. Ashbaker served Opera Philadelphia for 16 years, the last 11 as director of artistic and music administration. She led casting practices and reestablished the Company as a pioneer in offering advancements to young singers before they achieved national or international recognition; gave unique opportunities to well-established artists; and supervised all activities of the artistic and music departments. Under her direction, an intern program with the Curtis Institute of Music was established.
Ms. Ashbaker has also worked as assistant conductor/vocal coach with New York City Opera, Theater am Goetheplatz (Bremen, Germany) and Academy of Vocal Arts, and was on the faculty of the Curtis Institute of Music for nearly 20 years.
A judge for the Metropolitan Opera Laffont Competition since 2000, Ms. Ashbaker has also served as judge for the Jensen Foundation, National Opera Association, National Association of Teachers of Singing, Marian Anderson Emerging Artist Competition and the Richard Tucker Foundation Auditions. She has served as panelist with Opera America, New York State Council on the Arts and National Endowment for the Arts. Ms. Ashbaker trained at Southern Illinois University and l’École Normale de Musique de Paris and received a second master’s degree in vocal accompanying and coaching from University of Illinois under the tutelage of John Wustman.
Ms. Ashbaker recently published a book: The Vocal Coach Approach: When Practice Makes Perfect (a guide to help singers of all levels learn to practice - and love it!) available from Inside View Press.
CLARE HANRAHAN, PROPS DESIGNER, is always happy and excited to come back and work for her Alma mater. Her recent work includes The Children’s Hour, Love and Information, and LAST WORDS at Rider University. Clare actively works in the North Jersey and New York City metro area theater scene, where she will join the team at Plays in the Park in Edison, NJ this summer. Clare would like to thank Louise Grafton for sharing her wisdom about the dangers of hot glue guns and for always being her inspiration.
BUCK LINTON, DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT/SCENIC DESIGNER. Earning his MFA in Scenography and Technical Design (Virginia Tech), Buck joined Rider University as its Technical Director in 2012 and became the Director of Production Management in 2022. He professionally produced more than 200 productions with such venues as The Kennedy Center, Paper Mill Playhouse, Manhattan Theatre Club, Seattle Repertory Theatre, Berkeley Repertory Theatre, La Jolla Playhouse and McCarter Theatre. Selected works include Travesties, Sleeping Beauty Wakes, Take Flight, Herringbone, Lookingglass Alice and A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Falstaff, Die Zauberflöte, Pelléas et Mélisande, Dialogues des Carmélites, La Clemenza di Tito, Oreste, Sunjata Kamalenya, The Odyssey Experience, Die Fledermaus, Rigoletto, Turandot, Chicago, EDDA (Ping Chong & Sequentia Ensemble, international tour). Since 2012, he has produced more than 100 productions for Rider University’s College of Arts and Sciences in the performing arts.
BRANDON RUSH, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, is thrilled to take on the role of Technical Director for Rider University’s 2024-25 season! Since his graduation from Rider in 2015, he kept a consistent relationship with Rider’s Theatre Department, where he has worked as overhire carpenter, Sceneshop Supervisor, and most recently as Assistant Technical Director. Rider University Production Credits include: Assistant Technical Director for Radium Girls, Doll’s House, Enemies, and Anything Goes. As a freelance Technical Director, his credits include: Dracula, The Last Five Years, and Emergency at Princeton Summer Theater.
SAMUEL STEPHENSON, COORDINATOR OF PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT (he/him/his), received his Bachelor of Arts degrees in English Literature and Music from Wabash College, graduating magna cum laude under a full-ride Lilly Scholarship. As a Joseph Flummerfelt Scholar, he received his Master of Music in Choral Conducting with distinction from Westminster Choir College. Samuel has performed with many choirs across the world. He toured with the Wabash College Glee Club internationally to Taiwan and organized and managed the renowned Choral Institute at Oxford, a summer program at the University of Oxford for inspiring conductors to work with leading figures in the choral world. He has performed with The Same Stream, whose recordings can be found on all major music services, and at the Weiwuying National Center for the Arts as part of the opera chorus for Verdi’s La Traviata. Most recently, Samuel conducted Morten Lauridsen’s Mid-Winter Songs with the Westminster Choir in concert at Washington D.C. He currently works as the Performance Management Coordinator at Rider University and Music Director at St. Andrew’s United Methodist Church in Warminster, PA.
NIKOLAY VEREVKIN, REHEARSAL AND PERFORMANCE PIANIST and vocal coach, joined the Curtis Institute of Music as an instructor, Russian diction coach, and staff pianist in 2021 and has been a faculty coach and recital pianist with the Ravinia Festival's Steans Music Institute Program for Singers since 2016. From 2022 he has been a music coach and a performance pianist at Westminster Opera Theater at Rider University, and in 2024 he was on faculty at the CoOPERAtive Program. Nikolay has accompanied numerous vocal and chamber music concerts to great acclaim at venues around the country, including Carnegie Hall's New York Citywide Program, New York Festival of Song, InSeries Opera Company of Washington D.C., and The Bohemians Club of NYC.
His opera coaching and staff pianist engagements also include productions at Opera Theater of Pittsburgh, The Juilliard School, Indiana University Opera Theater, Ball State University Opera Theater, and St. Petersburg State Conservatory Theater of Opera and Ballet. As a sought-after collaborative pianist Mr. Verevkin was invited to participate in a co-production performance of Ellen West by Beth Morrison Projects and Saratoga Opera under the baton of Lydia Yankovskaya at The New School in 2019.
Previously Nikolay has been on staff at The Juilliard School in the Ellen and James S. Marcus Institute for Vocal Arts where his duties encompassed music preparation for opera productions and opera scenes, accompanying industry auditions and voice lessons, acting and lyric diction coaching. During his appointment as Visiting Assistant Professor and Post-Doctoral Scholar at Indiana University Jacobs School of Music Mr. Verevkin taught graduate and undergraduate courses in vocal literature, individual voice and collaborative piano coaching class, and had music directed multimedia creative projects and themed recitals involving IU faculty, students and guest artists. On the West Coast, he was consequently invited to coach Russian lyric diction and song interpretation at SongFest's Art Song Institute in Los Angeles and Carmel-by-the-Sea, California.
Nikolay Verevkin holds a Doctor of Arts degree in Solo Piano and Chamber Music and an Artist Diploma from Ball State University, IN, and Master of Music degree in Solo and Collaborative Piano in Voice from Saint-Petersburgh State Conservatory. In North America, he received additional training in collaborative piano and voice at the Music Academy of the West and Toronto Summer Music Academy.
BEN DAVIS SIMONETTY (Production Stage Manager) Bachelor of Fine Arts in Theatre Arts, minor in Arts Entertainment and Industries Management. Hometown: Poughkeepsie, NY. Past Engagements: Production Stage Manager (Alma/ TopDog UnderDog/Project 206) with Passage Theatre Company. Upcoming Engagements: House Manager with McCarter Theatre and Quintessence Theatre Group, Production Stage Manager (Project 206 staged reading) Passage Theatre Company.
JESSIE DOTY (Projection Operator): Sophomore Bachelor of Fine Arts Musical Theatre Major, Hometown: Lomita, California. Past Engagements: Jack U/S (Into the Woods) Rider University, Mischa (Ride the Cyclone) RSTC.
GRACE MCKENNA (Wardrobe Supervisor) senior Bachelor of Fine Arts in Musical Theatre major (studies with Carolann Page). Hometown: Langhorne, Pennsylvania. Past Engagements: Florinda (Into the Woods), Passenger (Anything Goes), Ensemble (Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812), and Ensemble/Katherine of Aragon Cover (Last Words).
