Erin Guinup knows her way around a concert stage. After earning her degree in vocal performance and music education from the University of Puget Sound, she went on to perform some of the best-loved roles in musical theater. She's directed, taught, conducted and acted her way around the entire region, performing for companies as diverse as Tacoma Opera and Shakespeare in the Parking Lot. Now she's returning to her alma mater for a one-night-only revue, which features female composers and lyricists of the last hundred years, from operetta to present-day Broadway.

I asked Guinup what we should expect from her whirlwind tour. "I tell stories," she explains. "I read quotes from these women in character, and I perform snippets of 21 songs." Older selections include "Shine on, Harvest Moon" (1909) and "Ah! Sweet Mystery of Life" (from an operetta intriguingly entitled Naughty Murietta, 1910). Among Guinup's more recent inclusions is lyricist Lynn Ahrens's lovely ballad "Back to Before," from the 1996 Broadway adaptation of Ragtime.

She's directed by Patti Cohenour, a Broadway legend who now resides in Seattle. "She was Christine in the original Phantom of the Opera," Guinup says. "She's just one of the nicest people I know. ... She knew a lot of these women we're talking about. She worked with them." Together, Guinup and Cohenour will shine a spotlight on Trude Rittman, the German-born, largely unheralded (though never unsung!) heroine who collaborated with Rodgers and Hammerstein, Lerner and Loewe, Irving Berlin and Jerome Robbins, plus compositions for Broadway's Peter Pan. "She's a fascinating character," Guinup gushes - and, as with all these women, we can't wait to hear for ourselves.

THE LADIES OF LYRIC AND SONG, 7:30 p.m. Nov. 16, Schneebeck Concert Hall, University of Puget Sound, 1500 N. Warner, Tacoma, free, 253.777.8478

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