Two local actors who have been featured in nationally touring shows will perform Saturday in the Lerner and Loewe musical My Fair Lady, presented by the Nittany Valley Symphony (NVS).

My Fair Lady is based on George Bernard Shaw's 1914 book Pygmalion. It tells the tale of Eliza Doolittle, a lower-class London flower girl with a Cockney accent, who encounters Henry Higgins, a snobby phonetics professor. Higgins is determined to pass Eliza off as an aristocrat to win a bet between him and Colonel Pickering, played by Jeff Brown. The musical features songs such as "Wouldn't it be Loverly," and "I Could Have Danced All Night."

The part of Eliza Doolittle is played by Martha Traverse, a graduate of State College Area High School and an administrative assistant in the Penn State College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. She spent 13 years as a professional actress in New York, but moved back to State College to begin her "second life." Although she has been involved with NVS musicals in the past, she said she did not think she would be cast in this production.

"Eliza is a part I always knew was well-suited for my talent," Traverse said. "But [I] figured it would never come along."

Traverse is not the only former professional in this production. She will be joined by State College resident and national tour veteran Richard Biever, who plays Professor Henry Higgins. Although he is now the owner of a local voice-coaching studio in State College, Biever's credits include touring nationally in Carnival and 1776. Biever said Higgins has been challenging for him because he believes it is the largest male role in musical theatre.

"I was really excited to audition for this show," Biever said. "And then I read the script and got very afraid ... there's so much dialogue on the page."

The challenges of this show have forced the cast and crew to be creative, said Michael Jinbo, music director and an NVC conductor for 15 years. The company typically produces only symphony concerts, he added, which enhances My Fair Lady's challenges.

"Everyone thinks we're crazy because we're a symphony, not a theatre company, and we create a theatre company for one show," Jinbo said.

Jinbo is a resident of New York and only lives in State College during the rehearsal process. He said he sometimes stays with a member of the orchestra, and sometimes-local hotels donate rooms.

He said local residents' and businesses' generosity really helps out since he experiences "little sleep and a lot of stress" through the rehearsals.

Traverse said the performance would be worth seeing.

"The book is brilliant and the music is so perfectly woven into the story," Traverse said. "There's no look-at-your-watch parts, there are no fiddle-with-your-program parts."