MARILYN HAUSFELD is a baby boomer who started in the Howdy Doody peanut gallery and went on to perform as an actor and singer in numerous theaters in the Washington DC area, including The National, The Kennedy Center, Source Theatre, Round House Theater, Theater J, The Center Company, Horizons Theatre, Washington Jewish Theatre, The Smithsonian, The Lyceum, Washington Women in Theater and the US Holocaust Museum.

Her roles have ranged from Golde in Fiddler on the Roof to Stella Adler in Stella to an alcoholic nymphomaniac in The Gingerbread Lady. Favorite roles include Kate in Neil Simon’s Broadway Bound and Brighton Beach Memoirs, Esther in Richard Rashke’s Dear Esther. Gorgeous in Wendy Wasserstein’s The Sisters Rosensweig and Fanny Brice in In Good Company. Her portrayal of Joyce in Roy Berkowitz’s Girls Night Out in Boca won her the Excellence in Acting Award at the Source Summer Festival. The two-person Beyond Shadowlands took her on a national university tour (Smith, Brown, Amherst, UCLA, etc.) as the wife of C.S. Lewis. She created the role of Debbie Strauss on NBC’s Homicide and even did a stint as an alleged murderess for the Association of Virginia Trial Lawyers. After being chosen to be a fellow at the International Cabaret Conference at Yale, she created the cabaret Just Between Us (now Show and Tell) which was first performed at Don’t Tell Mama and the Metropolitan Room in New York, the Source Theater in Washington DC and the Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia. Marilyn holds a BA in English from Brooklyn College and an MA from George Washington University.

ALEX RYBECK is a pianist, composer, and arranger, best known for his work in concerts, cabarets, and on recordings with such stars as Liz and Ann Hampton Callaway, Faith Prince, Tommy Tune, Donna McKechnie, Lee Roy Reams, Amanda McBroom, Tovah Feldshuh, Jason Graae, Jeff Harnar (The 1959 Broadway Songbook), Rita (The Fantasticks) Gardner, “Voice of Hollywood” Marni Nixon, and the legendary Kitty Carlisle Hart. His Broadway credits include Merrily We Roll Along, Grand Hotel, Passion, the hit revival of Damn Yankees (starring Jerry Lewis and Bebe Neuwirth) and Tommy Tune Tonite! Off-Broadway credits include Wings (Public Theater), Really Rosie (directed by Pat Birch) and Flora the Red Menace (directed by Susan Stroman). Regionally, he earned personal praise from Burt Bacharach for conducting the world premiere of What the World Needs Now, starring Sutton Foster.

He has played such prestigious venues as Carnegie Hall, Lincoln Center, Kennedy Center, and New York’s Town Hall, as well as Manhattan’s top cabaret rooms (Algonquin Oak Room, Café Carlyle, Russian Tea Room, Feinstein’s, Rainbow & Stars, etc). He has also worked with such showbiz greats as Eartha Kitt, Jane Olivor, John Raitt, Patricia Neal, Michael Feinstein, and Metropolitan opera diva Roberta Peters. He has composed songs with Michael Stewart, Carol Hall, and Ira Gasman, among others. Originally from the Washington DC area, he studied piano with Esther Howe before attending Oberlin College. Later, he was mentored by Leonard Bernstein, Hal Prince, Stephen Sondheim, and Stephen Schwartz at the NYU Musical Theater Writing Program. In addition to performing, arranging, and composing, he is also a sought-after teacher of song interpretation, and has served on the faculties of such programs as The International Cabaret Conference at Yale, The St. Louis Cabaret Conference, and the Singing School (New Zealand).