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.
RAYNA J. ALLEN, PRODUCTION DOCUMENTARIAN (she/her), is a junior Musical Theatre major. Select Credits include: The Prom (Rider University), Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Rider University), Beautiful: The Carol King Musical (Music Theatre Wichita), Matilda (Music Theatre Wichita), Frozen (Music Theatre Wichita), and 9 to 5 (Music Theatre Wichita).
JULIA ALMENDRA, ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNER (they/them), is a sophomore Musical Theatre major. Rider credits include: The Six Degrees of Sierra Boggess (Rider Student Theatre Company). Favorite credits include: Cats (U/S Mistoffelees/Jennyanydots/Skimbleshanks) and Chicago (Velma Kelly).
NICHOLAS AMMON, ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER (he/him) is a freshman Musical Theatre major. Select Credits include: 9 to 5 (Josh Newstead; Fulton Theatre), Grease (Teen Ensemble; Fulton Theatre).
JAMEL BAKER, STAGE MANAGEMENT MENTOR. Jamel is excited to be a part of this production of RENT as the Stage Manager Mentor. Jamel has been stage managing for over 10 years for theatre, opera and dance locally and nationally. In addition to stage managing, Jamel has also led Stage Management workshops with Opera Philadelphia & Riot Inc. When not stage managing, Jamel works at Passage Theatre (Trenton, NJ) as the Lead Producer.
PETER DE METS, MUSICAL DIRECTOR, Recent music direction credits at Rider include The Prom, Urinetown, and Pete(Her)Pan. Other recent music director credits include School of Rock, A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder, Next to Normal Shrek, West Side Story, Fun Home, Merrily We Roll Along, Sunday in the Park with George, and the Off-Broadway revival of the doo-wop, unaccompanied musical, Avenue X. He also serves as the Music Director for TCNJ’s Lyric Theater, where he has musically directed cabaret performances and coached singers for masterclasses with composers Jeanine Tesori, Jason Robert Brown, and this Spring, Stephen Schwartz. He is the Director of Music at Ascension Lutheran Church in Newtown, PA and a composer of choral, theatrical, and handbell music. www.peterdemetsmusic.com
OLIVIA DOSTAL, ASSISTANT LIGHTING DESIGNER (she/they) is a junior BFA Acting Major. Rider Main stage Credits include: The Fire (ensemble, upcoming), Anything Goes (Assistant Lighting Designer), and Love and Information (Assistant Stage Manager). Rider Student Theatre Company credits include: The Guy Who Didn't Like Musicals (Ted/Smoke Club Kid/Homeless Man), WYGTA: 30 in 60 (ensemble), and Six Degrees of Sierra Boggess (director).
SHAE DUGGAN, ASSISTANT CHOREOGRAPHER/PROPS DESIGNER, (they/she) is a senior BFA Musical Theatre major and student employee. Rider MainStage credits include: Anything Goes (Production Documentarian), The Prom (Props Supervisor), Kiss Me, Kate (Associate Choreographer/Dance Captain), Cabaret (Projection Op), and Pete(Her) Pan (Spot Op). Rider Student Theatre Company credits include: Swingin’ the Seasons (Scenic Designer/Spot Op) and Romeo & Juliet (Assistant Choreographer).
CLARE HANRAHAN, PROPS MANAGER, 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.
OLI HARTDEGEN, ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNER, (they/them), is a Junior Theatre Arts Design and Technology major. Their recent professional credits include: Beautiful: The Carole King Musical (Lighting Build + Deck Crew) at Moonlight Amphitheatre, School Of Rock (Carpentry + Deck Crew), Jingle Terrace Live: The Doo Wop Project (Stage Manager) and Jesus Christ Superstar (Build crew, Deck Crew, and Followspot). They also include credits at The California Center for the arts, Escondido: Mannheim Steamrollers Local Crew (Build + Video), and San Diego Symphony (Strike).
AVERY HUBERT, PRODUCTION STAGE MANAGER, (they/she) is a senior double major in Theatre Design & Technology and Theatre Making. Select Rider credits include: Radium Girls (Production Stage Manager), Much Ado About Nothing (Scenic Design; Props Design), Last Words (Assistant Stage Manager), and Ride the Cyclone (Stage Manager; Rider Student Theatre Company).
ROBIN LEWIS, DIRECTOR/CHOREOGRAPHER, Rider credits include: Anything Goes, The Prom, Will Rogers Follies, Bonnie and Clyde, White Christmas, Pippin, Catch Me If You Can, All Shook Up, The Full Monty, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and The Producers. Film credits include: choreography for Bernie. Broadway performing credits include: Fosse (also film), Beauty and the Beast, and A Christmas Carol. His tour credits include: The Producers, A Chorus Line, Hello, Dolly!, Beauty and the Beast, Where’s Charley? at the Kennedy Center) and Jubilee during the Tony Awards® at Carnegie Hall. He is currently a faculty member in the musical theatre department at Rider University.
BUCK LINTON, DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTION MANAGEMENT. 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.
TODD LOYD, LIGHTING DESIGNER, is the lighting director for Rider University’s Department of Performing Arts. He supervises the lighting for every performance that the department produces in addition to mentoring several students that assist in designing, hanging, focusing, and programming the lighting for each show. At Rider he has designed over 30 productions including plays, musicals, dance recitals, cabarets, and operas. Some of the highlights include Anything Goes, Radium Girls, The Prom, Clean Slate: A World Premiere Musical, Urinetown, Cabaret, Polaroid Stories, Rider Dances: Moving in Our Community, Pippin, Bright Star, Hair, Heathers The Musical, Once On This Island, She Kills Monsters, A Chorus Line and Metamorphoses. Other selected professional projects include Rock of Ages and Baskerville: A Sherlock Holmes Mystery (Forestburgh Playhouse), Clean Slate: A World Premiere Musical and The Gun Show (Passage Theatre), and Journey to Oz (Children's Theatre of Charlotte and Experiential Theater Company).
GRACE MCKENNA, DRAMATURG, (she/her) is a senior Musical Theatre Major. This is her first time working as a Dramaturg Rider Main Stage credits include: Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 (Ensemble), Anything Goes (Ensemble). Upcoming credits include Into the Woods (Florinda).
JIM PARKS, COSTUME DESIGNER, Jim is excited to have designed for this production of RENT. It’s a show he has never had the opportunity to work on but one that he’s always wanted to. Past design credits for Rider University include: Urinetown, Radium Girls, Cendrillon and Suor Angelica. His most recent work could be seen on Middlesex County’s Plays in the Park “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum”. His past credits include work in a variety of plays, musicals, opera, television and film.
CRAIG PINCUS, SOUND ENGINEER, Craig Pincus has worked in professional audio & system design for the past twenty-nine years. He has engineered and produced audio for musical theater performances, national television broadcast, and recording studio clientele. Craig holds a Bachelor's degree in Communication from Rutgers University and teaches digital audio production at Brookdale Community College in Lincroft, NJ. Craig also performs and records music, owns a sound & event production service, and directs TheatreCraft Musical Program, a children’s theater company, created with his wife Renee, producing theatrical performances in the central NJ area.
AVA PUENTES, ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER, is a Sophomore Acting Major. Her Rider Student Theatre Company credits include: Patti Lupone was an Acting Major: Voice Recital (company) and Wherever you Go There you Are (Company).
BRANDON RUSH, TECHNICAL DIRECTOR, Brandon Rush is thrilled to make his debut as 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 an 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.
ELLA RYBCZYNSKI, STAGE MANAGER (she/they), is a Sophomore Theatre Design and Technology Major. Rider Main Stage credits include: The Prom (Spot Op.), Natasha, Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (Sound Op.), Rider Dances (SM), Anything Goes (Light Board Op.), RENT (SM), and Nell Gwynn (ALD). Rider Student Theatre Company credits include: Inside the Spitz : A Bo Burnham Cabaret (SM), and The Six Degrees of Sierra Boggess (PSM). She was also the Paint Charge for Totem Pole Playhouse's 2024 Summer Season.
OLIVIA SAUERBERG, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR is a senior musical theatre major. Past Rider Credits include Anything Goes (Purity/ US Reno), Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (Princess Mary), and Kiss me, Kate. Past professional credits include Bright Star (Margo), Young Frankenstein (Inga), Into the Woods (Cinderella), White Christmas (Rita, US Judy), Cinderella (Charlotte), Sweet Charity (Ponytail Girl), and Spongebob (Electric Skate). Thank you to everyone involved in this production! @oliviasauerberg
MELENA SCOTT, CO SCENIC DESIGNER, is a junior Theater Design and technology major. Rider technical credits include: A Doll's House (Production Stage Manager), The Great Comet of 1812 (Stage Manager), The Prom (Assistant Stage Manager), Clean Slate: A World Premiere Musical (Assistant Stage Manager), Urinetown (Assistant Stage Manager). Recent Professional credits include: Detox: The Art of Expression (Production Stage Manager) at Passage Theatre Company. Upcoming credits include: Into the Woods (Scenic Designer)
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.
YOSHINORI TANOKURA, SCENIC DESIGNER, originally from Tokyo, is an educator and freelance set designer. Yoshi has been teaching scenic design at Rider University. Outside the school, his design credits include A Christmas Story (Bristol Riverside Theatre), O.K. Trenton (Passage Theatre), The Goat, or Who is Sylvia? (Berkshire Theatre Group), Moon Over Buffalo (People’s Light & Theatre), Clever Little Lies by Joe DiPietro (Westside Theatre, N.Y.C.), Exonerated (Delaware Theatre Company), and Peter and the Starcatcher (Adrienne Arsht Center). Yoshi assisted John Lee Beatty on a number of Broadway productions, such as Doubt and The Color Purple. Yoshi holds an M.F.A. in Set Design from the University of Connecticut and is a member of the United Scenic Artists, Local 829.
HAILEY TEDESCO, SOUND DESIGNER, is a junior at Rider for Theater Technology and Design, she is so excited to be on the team for RENT! Her previous credits include Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812 (assistant stage manager), Radium Girls (sound designer), and many of the student productions here at Rider. She recently worked at the French Woods Festival as a set designer. She is also the Historian for the Rider Student Theater company.
PEYTON WHITE, ASSISTANT STAGE MANAGER, is a junior BFA Musical Theatre major. Rider performance credits include: Entr’acte: Come Together and Momentum. Rider technical credits include: Anything Goes (Script Supervisor) and Kiss Me, Kate! (Props Runner).
