Richard Skipper Celebrates Rita Gardner 3/02/2022
For Video Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/Ap7xJQGyx6g Rita Gardner is a renowned singer, teacher, and actress of stage and screen with a long career spanning many years of exciting projects Gardner made her stage debut Off-Broadway in Jerry Herman's musical review Nightcap before her breakout turn as Luisa in the original cast of The Fantasticks in 1960. Gardner made her Broadway debut in the short-lived musical (65 performances) A Family Affair in 1962 as Sally Nathan. She held many roles on Broadway including understudying roles in On a Clear Day You Can See Forever (1965), The Last of the Red Hot Lovers (1969), and Morning's at Seven (2002) (understudy for Cora and Esther). She had a featured role as Rosie in The Wedding Singer in 2006, with three musical numbers including the song "Move that Thang". Gardner's regional theatre credits include Show Boat and The Impossible Years at the Bucks County Playhouse in New Hope, Pennsylvania (1983), the musical Lucky in the Rain at the Goodspeed Opera House (1997), and Eleanor: A Love Story at Ford's Theatre in Washington, D.C. (1999). She appeared in the national tour of Kiss of the Spider Woman (1994). She gave a critically acclaimed performance in Murderers at The Cincinnati Playhouse (2007). In 2002 she appeared in her one-woman revue Try to Remember: A Look Back at Off-Broadway at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York City on Saturday evenings. The revue includes ballads from The Fantasticks. She performed the revue at the Metropolitan Room in New York City in 2011 and had to cancel the revival of the revue in 2020 due to Covid-19. Gardner's television credits include appearances in Law & Order, Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (on season one episode 18) and Law & Order: Criminal Intent.