DIRECTOR

Sara founded Happily Ever After Productions Amsterdam in 2019. Growing up in a musical theater family, she performed in over 200 musicals by the time she was 18. Although she still will occasionally get on stage, she has discovered that her passion is directing and producing musicals in this beautiful country. She hopes to build HEA Productions across the Netherlands providing opportunities to perform in and attend English speaking musical theater to everyone.

ASSISTANT DIRECTOR

Ties Jansen is a Dutch-American actor, dramaturg, and writer based in Amsterdam. Having spent half his life in The Netherlands and the other half in New York City, he has worked on- and off-stage in both the American and European performing arts industries. NYC on-stage credits include Welcome to the Wood: A Midsummer Night's Dream (Schimmel Center), I Do Believe In Fairies (Dixon Place), and This Is Our Youth (SQUARE1 at Sitting Shotgun). Since returning to Amsterdam in 2021, Ties has served as the production dramaturgy intern for the world premiere of Robert Icke's Judas (Internationaal Theater Amsterdam) and as the directing assistant for The Mousetrap (2021) and Huisvrouwen bestaan niet (2021) at REP Entertainment. Most recently, Ties portrayed the roles of Herr Schultz in QETC's Cabaret at CC Amstel and Billy Flynn in HEA’s Chicago. Ties is a graduate of the BFA Acting program at the Pace University School of Performing Arts in New York City.

VOCAL DIRECTOR

In addition to being a singer and performer himself, Wesley is excited to put on the vocal director hat for this production. His past credits include directing various church and college chamber choirs, and conducting an orchestra for Catawba College in North Carolina. He spent five years directing a dancing pop show choir for the same college, which he feels happily prepared him for this first endeavor as a musical theater vocal director.

BAND DIRECTOR

Michael is an award winning classical guitarist from Cork, Ireland. Michael has been a musician for most of his life, having started piano at an early age before being drawn to the guitar and it’s diverse tonal palette. Since then he has explored a wide variety of genres, performing with a number of groups, but fell in love with the intimate tones of the classical guitar. Michael ventured into the world of musical theatre a couple years ago, where he started out playing in HEA Productions’ Little Shop of Horrors, and from there has music directed Disenchanted!, directed / music directed Monstersongs with the Cauldron, played in the band for HEA’s Chicago, and music directed The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee. Michael is excited to lead the band at HEA productions for Be More Chill!

ASSISTANT BAND DIRECTOR

Britt is an Anglo-Dutch producer within the classical music realm, returning to the stage after a long hiatus. Trained in classical piano, she also always had a deep love for musical theatre after seeing Phantom of the Opera as a 4-year old. After discovering the musical theatre scene within Amsterdam she dove in head-first and is taking on any opportunity to learn and explore this art form further.

STAGE MANAGER

Mavis has fallen in love with theater since she acted as the stage manager for her first high school production. The fire has been burning ever since. She has long been a keen evangelist to organize amateur theater productions in Hong Kong for teenagers to build up their self-confidence and cultural awareness. Having moved to Amsterdam now, she is so excited to have found HEA and connected with fellow enthusiastic English-speaking theater lovers. She is ready now to continue developing amazing theater productions for all culture lovers to enjoy!

CHOREOGRAPHER

Annick Huizinga is a professional dancer educated at HBO Lucia Marthas Dansacademie Institute for Performing Arts in Amsterdam. She is an all-around dancer with a versatile background and an ability to dance in all styles. Annick has 10+ years of professional experience performing in many different productions worldwide, both as a dancer and as a Dance Captain Assistant, including Dinnershows in Studio 21 at Hilversum, the Royal Caribbean cruise ship Mariner of the Seas and shows abroad. Annick has also performed in many televised performance events and TV shows such as Dancing With The Stars, Belgium’s Got Talent, Gouden Televisier-Ring Gala, X-Factor, 3FM Awards and dancing for Fedde Le Grand’s shows. Annick has multiple years of freelance experience dancing in numerous gigs throughout Europe and Asia, as well as dancing for various music videos and commercials. Since 2021 Annick is in charge of the choreography for the Bootcamps of Happily Ever After Production's .

CHOREOGRAPHER

Yaël Sarioa, professional educated at Lucia Marthas Institute for Performing Arts HBO. Trained to be an all-round dancer. He has been performing in (live TV) shows as Eurovision Song Contest, The Voice of Finland, X-Factor, Gouden Televizier-Ring, Grand Prix the Netherlands and Belgium with Armin van Buuren. Live performances for Nike, Tomorrowland, Hans Klok and dinner show Vegas. Yaël is experienced as dancer, dance-captain and choreographer in Europe and Asia.

DANCE CAPTAIN

Brittany is a performer, dancer and creator born and raised in The Netherlands. She started at the very young age of four with dance lessons in styles like ballet, jazz, musical theatre and tap. Around the age of ten she entered the professional musical world as a performer, doing productions such as Ciske de Rat and Billy Elliot with Stage Entertainment where she developed herself as a skilled performer. After a knee injury she unfortunately needed to stop her preliminary dance education at the Academy of Theatre and Dance in Amsterdam, but is now thriving as a semi-professional performer, teacher and creator in Amsterdam with groups like Vocality Productions, DOS, Amsterdam Musical and of course The Cauldron and HEA. Roles she played include Mimi in Rent, Little Red Riding Hood in Into the woods, Mona in HEA Chicago and many others. Next to her work on and off stage she is busy with finishing up her Bachelor in Theatre Studies with a specialty in musical theatre.

LIGHTING DESIGN / TECH

Yann has been involved in the Amsterdam theater community since 2014, and he has worked both onstage and backstage for English (Into the Woods, Contractions, Avenue Q, Monstersongs) and French (Les sept jours de Simon Labrosse, Le crime de l'Orient Express) productions since then. After working in the lighting booth for HEA's Little Shop of Horrors in 2021, he fell in love with light operation and design, and most recently designed and ran lights for HEA’s Chicago.

SOUND DESIGN AND TECH

Originally from the UK, Stuart discovered audio engineering while in high school working as a musician on various theatre productions for both school and independent companies. This new found passion led him on a wild journey, working on shows in the UK, including the Edinburgh Fringe, then moving to Australia, Canada and now the Netherlands. Stuart re-connected with his passion for theatre last year playing drums in Monstersongs and now bringing his audio skills to the Happily Ever After family.

SET DESIGNER

Marc is an animator and illustrator who started doing set design for HEAP a few years ago with their production of Into The Woods. He kept going ever since, designing sets for productions such as Little Shop of Horrors, Ordinary Days and Avenue Q, in which he also played Trekkie Monster. He also combines his love for theatre and animation in his very own YouTube series, @wolfgangluvsyou.

COSTUMES

Viivi Valpuri is a costume designer, puppet maker, and creator extraordinaire based in Amsterdam. Viivi has a master’s degree in theatre science at the University of Helsinki with a focus on immersive theatre and costume design. In the past decade, Viivi has had her hands full from running a film company to hosting tours in theatre history and from teaching embroidery to designing and making costumes and puppets. Viivi has been working with English language theatre in Amsterdam since her arrival in 2019 and has been with Happily Ever After since their production of Little Shop of Horrors. Viivi’s most recent activities have been with Happily Ever After as the mother of the Avenue Q puppets, with Orange Theatre Company as costume designer for A Christmas Carol, and HEA’s Chicago.