Critics Raved About The Off-Broadway Production
Peter Filichia - Broadway Radio
"It was terrific. It's one of the best shows that I've seen this year!"
"This version of Enchanted April is a tremendous success!"
"This is in the category of "Golden Age" musical and let's consider that a compliment."
Deb Miller - DC Metro Theatre Arts
"An Enchanted April, delivers the old-fashioned story in both dialogue and song, in a nostalgic production...that evokes the historic style of an operetta."
"The story leaves us with a feel-good message about the power of love, friendship, gratitude, and communication to change people’s lives for the better."
"An Enchanted April offers an engaging look at the situation of women during a transitional era in the early 20th century, with an uplifting reminder that the joys of life can overcome times of adversity."
Alix Cohen - Woman Around Town
"An Enchanted April’s gentle heart is unimpeachable."
"Collaborators Elizabeth Hansen and C. Michael Perry have manifest the story’s light-handed sensitivity and sentiment without treacle."
"The piece verges on operetta in the way Sondheim approached A Little Night Music. Every one of Perry’s attractive, supple melodies suits the moment. Lyrics are both wonderfully literate and singable."
"Hansen’s book is deftly economic, offering just enough dialogue not to feel changes are abrupt, rendering each character distinctive."
Marc Miller - Off Off Online
"It’s light on its feet and pleasing to the ear."
The show is..."neat, well-rhymed, bountiful with waltzes, and refreshingly plot- and character-specific."
"An Enchanted April...is comfort food, constructed according to the old standards of literate dialogue, literate lyrics, and lush melody supported by chords that resolve naturally into one another."
Mark Kappel
"This story is told with a witty book, and music and lyrics that evoke the period in which the story takes place. There are some moments when you might think of a play by Chekov or even Sondheim’s A Little Night Music, however this version of An Enchanted April has much of its own to offer."
Darryl Reilly - TheaterScene.net
"Co-lyricists Elizabeth Hansen and composer C. Michael Perry’s score with its appealing melodies and artful lyrics recalls the manner of Jerry Herman."
"Ms. Hansen’s book is faithful to its derivation, has wit and dramatic heft."
Michael Portantiere -- Broadway Radio
“I enjoyed it. I was very glad that I saw it. The score was drastically more successful than the score from another show I saw just before it. The adaptation, I think, is very strong.”
Meet the Cast
LEAH HOCKING as Lotty Wilkins
Just a sampling: Broadway: The Last Ship (Jesse), Billy Elliot (Mum), Mamma Mia (Donna Sheridan), Hairspray (Velma Von Tussle), All Shook Up (Miss Sandra), Dance of the Vampires (Magda), The Wild Party (Mae), Jekyll and Hyde (Lucy), Grease (Marty), Guys and Dolls (Sarah Brown). Leah was nominated for a Helen Hayes award for her performance as Mrs. Wilkinson in the national tour of Billy Elliot at The Kennedy Center. She made her New York City Opera debut as Cleo in The Most Happy Fella. Off Broadway: The Mad Ones, The Thing About Men , Forbidden Broadway 10th Anniversary.
ALMA CUERVO as Mrs. Fisher
Most recently, Ms Cuervo, appeared in In The Heights(Music Theatre of Wichita), YERMA (Huntington Theatre) and On Your Feet(Broadway and national tour). Other Broadway credits include Beauty and the Beast; Cabaret; Titanic; The Heidi Chronicles; Ghetto; Quilters; Is There Life After High School?; Censored Scenes from King Kong; and Bedroom Farce. She played in the national tours of Wicked; My Fair Lady; Cabaret; M. Butterfly. Her off-Broadway credits include Road Show(Public Theatre); Allegro(Classic Stage Company) and many others. She received an OBIE for her performance in Uncommon Women and Others (also on PBS) and a Barrymore Award for Beauty Queen of Leenane(Philadelphia Theatre Company). Alma has worked extensively in regional theatre and is an award-winning narrator of audiobooks. She was a series regular on Norman Lear’s a.k.a. Pabloand is a graduate of Tulane and Yale Drama School.
CHIRSTIANA COLE as Rose Arbuthnot
The NY Times called Christiana Cole “top-notch.” Seen at: Playwrights Horizons, Ars Nova, City Center, 54 Below, Musical Theatre Factory, Queens Theatre, York Theatre, Labyrinth Theatre Company, O’Neill Theatre Center, Transport Group. Fave credit: Big Alison in Fun Home (TheatreSquared). Winner of NPR’s The MOTH Story Slam. Featured vocalist on the soundtrack of the Sundance-selected film The Farewell, starring Awkwafina. Christiana has a degree in opera from the Manhattan School of Music and teaches voice.
GENA SIMS as Lady Caroline Dester
...is excited to make her professional NYC debut in An Enchanted April! She received her BFA in Music Theatre from Carnegie Mellon. Gena was fortunate to recently win first prize of $15,000 at the National Society of Arts and Letters Drama Competition! Other awards include a 2014 National Young Arts Finalist, and both the John Kennedy Arthur Award and Thomas Auclair Memorial Award at Carnegie Mellon. Favorite credits: SKiNFoLK and The Perfect Mate at Pittsburgh Civic Light Opera; Violet and Floyd Collins, and Detroit ‘67, Cabaret, and Medea/Shulie at CMU.
JIM STANEK as Mellersh Wilkins
Broadway: Fun Home, Lestat, Little Women, The Rivals, A FunnyThing Happened on the Way to the Forum. Off-Broadway: Goldstein, Desperate Writers, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Freud's Last Session, Jacques Brel Returns, Frankenstein, A New Musical, Jacques Brel Is Alive and Well and Living in Paris, Slut, Best Foot Forward. Regional: Footloose, Into the Woods, Family Ties, Carnival!, The Threepenny Opera, Thoroughly Modern Millie.
AARON PHILLIPS as Frederick Arbuthnot
Off-Broadway: American Morning (Sasha/Wilson) NY theatre: Boats and… (The Gus), Lincoln Center: Broadway’s Future Songbook, Sandy & Soil(Sandy), The New Hopeville Comics (Felix), The Bardy Bunch(Chris Partridge). Regional: Jekyll and Hyde (John Utterson), Batboy: The Musical (Batboy), Les Misérables (Foreman/Combeferret. Voiceover: Subway, USAA, Staples, World of Warcraft, Grand Theft Auto V, Red Dead Redemption 2and Lord of the Rings: Online.
PETER REID LAMBERT as Mr. Briggs
...moved to New York last year and is thrilled to work on An Enchanted April. He has played Freddie in Hudson Warehouse’s Pride and Prejudice, Ensemble in Seven Angels Theatre’s The Who’s Tommy, and Ernst in Resident Theatre Company’s Cabaret. He also originated the role of Johnny in the new musical Beulah Land by Patrick Nash and Eric Liddell in the American premiere of Chariots of Fire.
MELODY MEEKS PUTNAM as Francesca
...has performed with Utah Lyric Opera for four seasons, without singing a note, in their productions of La Traviata, La Boheme, Rigoletto, and as “Dorcus,” the silent servant in The Barber of Seville. Regional credits include: Eulalie McKecknie Shinn in The Music Man, Aunt Martha in Arsenic and Old Lace, and numerous Broadway Revues in San Diego, as well as Grandma Tzeitel in Fiddler on the Roof in Salt Lake City, to name just a few. Melody, who hasn’t graduated from anything, except high school, and has no degree in anything, except life, is a native of California currently living in Utah.
Photo Credits
All photos on this page (and others) are from the NYC performances at Theatre Row Photography by Carol Rosegg. Used by Permission.
Artistic Associates
Alice Jankell
Christine Cirker
Christine Cirker
DIRECTOR
For Disney, Alice helped to create and develop new Broadway musicals. As Associate Artistic Director of The Williamstown Theatre Festival, her directing work included AS YOU LIKE IT, the world premier of DINAH WAS, and ENOUGH ROPE, the special event on Dorothy Parker starring Elaine Stritch. Alice has worked in venues as varied as the Mark Taper Forum, the L.A. Opera, Joseph Papp's Public Theatre, New York Theatre Workshop, La Mama, and City Theater, as well as in film and TV and has taught acting at Carnegie Mellon. For 6 years, Alice was the Creative Director of F.A.B. Women (For, About, and By Women) under The Barrow Group's Off-Broadway umbrella, helming the company of 125 professional female writers, actors and directors. Alice is a founding member of Core Artists Ensemble, and a NY Theatre Workshop Usual Suspect.
Education: Wesleyan, Masters at NYU.
Christine Cirker
Christine Cirker
Christine Cirker
MARKETING DIRECTOR
Christine was Marketing Director at The Barrow Group (2016-18) and now does freelance marketing for theatre. Christine also wears the hats of Off-Broadway director and producer, focusing primarily on new work. Most recently, she was Dramaturge & Associate Director for Awake, by K. Lorrel Manning at The Barrow Group. Off Bway producing credits: Random Acts, Letters to Sala, The Basement Plays, The R Word, Downsizing, Einstein & Mileva, Danny and the Deep Blue Sea. Christine has produced for F.A.B. Women@TBG, the women’s development group at TBG since 2010.
Other Productions
Hale Center Theatre, West Valley City, Utah
Staged Reading -- 2015
Covey Center for the Arts, Provo, Utah
Staged Reading -- 2015
Utah Valley University, Orem, Utah
Workshop Production -- 2008