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.

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 A Chorus Line.

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.

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.