Brian Hilbrand's interest in musicals started when he watched The Sound of Music, and his mom and her parents were musical. He started school musicals in lower elementary/ middle school, and then I saw my first community production in 7th grade when LionHeart Productions did “The Sound of Music”. He was cast into the community production of “Oliver!” in the fall of 2001. He did a run of shows after including “The King and I”, “Music Man”, and “Guys and Dolls”, and wrote the theatre column "Arts at Heart" for his High School newsletter. He took a small hiatus from theatre to attend college for radio broadcasting/ telecommunications, where he did a lot of singing and hosted karaoke on campus.
After college, he returned to acting for LionHeart for “The Wizard of Oz” in the fall of 2011, “Annie”, “Shrek the Musical”, “Fiddler on the Roof”, “Mary Poppins”, and many shows since then. He also assisted with many productions for Lion Heart off stage and backstage as a stagehand, rigging person (well-being in the production), an animal handler, child wrangler, and stage manager for kids' theatre, since he loves to stay busy between his times on stage. He has also stage-managed for his other love outside the theatre, “Moose Fest,” an all-day country music concert for which he did for 5 years (2015-2019). Brian has also been in 3 Professional Operas locally with Opera Grand Rapids: Turandot (2022), Aida (2023), and La Bohème (2024).
Brian also LOVES to attend Broadway Grand Rapids tours, Grand Rapids Symphony events, Opera Grand Rapids, special community "arts" events, in addition to community productions, and write about them. By doing so, he hopes to bring attention to the awesome shows we are blessed to have locally at the community level for professionals. If you would like to have your show considered for local coverage, please send me the info for the show and a way to get in contact with you. To keep up on where I will be for BWW, and my other appearances in West Michigan, head on over and give my Media FB page a BIG “Like” and follow me there as well.
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