RSO Songs Featured in Rider University Production

December 4, 2014

Rider University presents Girl’s Night Out, a work of devised Theatre based on the compositions of Contemporary Musical Theatre composer, Ryan Scott Oliver.

On Friday and Saturday, December 5th and 6th at 7:30pm, Girls’ Night Out will be performed at Rider University’s Yvonne Theater in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. Admission is free.

Girl’s Night Out is a work of devised Theatre based on the compositions of Contemporary Musical Theatre composer, Ryan Scott Oliver.  Each young performer has been presented a musical piece composed by Mr.Oliver that informed their character. The relationships that grow between each character have developed out of their improvisational work within the rehearsal process.  The audience will follow each young person’s journey, observing each character’s discoveries that effect not only themselves, but everyone around them as well.

Directed by Rider Musical Theater Faculty Mariann Cook, with musical direction by Wendy Feaver, and choreography by Colby Dezelick, Girls’ Night Out features Maria Garvey, Samantha Ricchuti, Sarah Catherine Carter, Patricia Curley, Sarah Davis, Kailee Graham, Madeline Chandler, Leanne Gallati, Chelsea Delgado, Jessica Phipps, Katherine Tennenbaum, and Amy Hine.

Rider University is comprised of 65 undergraduate programs and 26 graduate programs in business administration, education, liberal arts, sciences, fine and performing arts, counseling, and leadership, with over 4,400 undergraduate and 1,000 graduate students. Rider Musical Theatre features BFA students in 8 productions per year, most recent a fully realized workshop of new work by the team that wrote Urinetown,  a new musical titled ZM, or the Zombie Musical.

‘RSO AT 54 BELOW’ will feature Klena, Mendez, Johnson and more

November 28, 2014

On Feb. 2, RSO will bring Alex Brightman, Katie Rose Clarke, Ben Fankhauser, Lindsay Mendez, Derek Klena, Jay Armstrong Johnson, Julia Mattison, Katie Thompson and many more to be announced to 54 Below.

artistpage_rso1Audiences can expect to hear songs from RSO’s latest tuner We Foxes, plus favorites from 35mm: A Musical Exhibition, Darling, Jasper in Deadland, and a few world premieres.

Most importantly, ticket buyers can get 50% off tickets purchased “Cyber Monday,” Monday, Dec. 1.  (A code will be offered via Facebook, and also placed here on Dec. 1.)

Get tickets here.

 

RSO commissioned to write ‘ROPE’

November 23, 2014

Beth Williams and Grove Entertainment have commissioned RSO to pen the original musical Rope.

Unrelated to the Hitchcock film of the same title, the story of Rope is as follows:

New York, 1864.
They are an unlikely pair: Clay, a gang-thief determined to find life’s fortune alone; and Szajda (“Shy”), a ghostly Jew with an Irish accent, blind but possessing a remarkable power.  Yet they become tied at the waist with a length of rope, stuck together on a desperate quest through a war-torn America.  Clinging together with this charmed rope that allows the blind Shy to see through the eyes of Clay, the two young men must escape the vicious gangs of New York and push a path into the heart of the Civil War, where they find the greatest battle of all must be between themselves, brother and brother.

The show is wholly original and inspired by this photograph:

dogs
The inspiration of ‘ROPE’

The show is meant to be the second in a trilogy of folk operas set in a time of war.  It will be nearly sung-through and will feel similar in tone to the first of the trilogy, We Foxes.  The shows will be thematically linked and may even share a “universe.”  RSO will contribute book, music and lyrics.

Williams and Grove (which is currently producing the Broadway bound Tuck Everlasting, among others) previously commissioned We Foxes.

‘WE FOXES’ Concert Cast Announced

October 28, 2014

Truman University’s 16th Annual New Horizons Music Festival announces casting for October 25th Concert of ‘We Foxes.’

Selections from RSO’s We Foxes will be performed by Adam Hunn (Eugene), Lexi Diaz (Vesta), Katie Angeli (Willa) with Callie Crawford, David Stowers, Larry Jennings, Marissa Butler, Natalie Hansen, Rachel Davis, Rachel Hoffman, Ryan Smith and Shannon Barton. We Foxes is one of only two new musicals selected from over 130 entries for performance in the annual New Musical Theatre Concert.

We Foxes is a southern Gothic thriller set in small-town Missouri, 1945.  It’s the story of Willa, a tough and unmannered orphan girl, and her adoption by the crafty Sheriff’s wife, Vesta Quimby.  When Willa discovers the dark secrets beneath the floorboards, a war cuts them apart and Willa must fight to survive.  After all, Vesta Quimby is the most beloved and powerful woman in town … Yet she’s less humanitarian socialite than she is Machiavellian sociopath…  Can Willa discover her own salvation, deliver herself into courage, and sacrifice everything to escape Vesta?  It is a story of intense human struggle, deliverance, and the great salvation found only through oneself.

The epic period musical is mostly sung-through, combining bluegrass, country, big band and concert music of the 1940s, infused with the contemporary folk-rock of today. We Foxes is a commission from Broadway Across America, and has been in residence at TheatreWorks Silicon Valley’s Writer’s Retreat, CAP 21, and the Weston Playhouse, and recently was given a developmental reading at the York Theatre.

The New Horizons Music Festival is a day of contemporary music featuring performers from the university and the surrounding region. The Festival includes music from most of the major genres in modern performance: chamber groups, multimedia, solo performers, large ensembles, and theatrical performance. The concerts and ongoing curated exhibition provide a substantive slice of contemporary music focusing on music that leverages the techniques of the classical musician and looks to the future.

The concert performance will be held on the Truman State University Campus in the Ophelia Parrish Building at 4:00pm on Saturday, October 25th. Admission is free.

Read the full press release HERE and for more information on the festival, visit http://nhmf.truman.edu.