Rider University Presents “Girl’s Night Out” December 5 through 6

Rider University’s Musical Theatre program presents its fall cabaret titled “Girl’s Night Out” on Friday, December 5 at 7:30 p.m. and Saturday, December 6 at 7:30 p.m. in Yvonne Theater on the campus of Rider University in Lawrenceville, N.J. The performance will feature Rider University students directed  by Mariann Cook.  Music director is Wendy Feaver and pianist is Joshua Zecher-Ross. Admission is free.

The program will feature the music of composer-lyricist Ryan Scott Oliver. A 2011 Lucille Lortel Award nominee, he composed the music and lyrics for such musicals as 35mm: A Musical Exhibition, Mrs. Sharp, Darling, We Foxes, Jasper the Deadland, Quit India and a commission for Disney Theatricals The Frog Prince Continued. He is an adjunct professor at Pace University and artistic director of the Pasadena Musical Theatre Program in California. Mr. Oliver describes his musical style as, “intricate…I love fusion, incorporating numerous styles in one. I think it gives my style a singular, unexpected feeling.”

Mariann Cook is professor of Musical Theatre-Voice at Rider University’s Westminster College of the Arts. Ms. Cook is a pro­fessional singer/actress who has per­formed in the national tour of The King and I as Anna with the iconic Yul Brynner, and went on to be in­cluded in the cast of Mr. Brynner’s final Broadway run. Other credits include Aldonza in a stock tour of Man of La Mancha opposite Broad­way veteran John Raitt and Jerome Hines, formerly with the Metropoli­tan Opera. Other roles include Maria in Sound of Music, Hilda in Plain and Fancy, Nancy in Oliver, Eliza Doolittle in My Fair Lady and Guinevere in Camelot. As a cross­over singer she has performed with the Tulsa Opera as Berta in The Barber of Seville and the Second Lady in The Magic Flute under the baton of Ransom Wilson. She can be heard on a recording of West Side Story for Naxos Records as Anita.

Wendy Feaver is a graduate of the American Musi­cal and Dramatic Academy in New York as well as the Musical Theatre Piano Program at Rider University, where she is currently on faculty as a vocal coach/accom­panist. Previous Rider University music directing credits include Lucky Stiff; The Human Heart: A Cabaret for Love; Unity & Tolerance; Cole: A Cole Porter Revue; Homemade Fusion; Love Goes On, an original song cycle by Briana Wolf; and It's a Girl!, an all-female cabaret. Ms. Feaver is the co-founder of Waytago Productions, a theatre production company creat­ed to be a platform to encourage artists' creative aspirations.

Musical theatre productions presented by Rider University’s Westminster College of the Arts feature students enrolled in the University’s highly regarded Musical Theatre program, as well as other talented students selected by audition. Graduates of the program are appearing on Broadway, in national touring productions and in major regional theaters.