Lettice Cook

United Kingdom

BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance

Lettice Cook’s performing arts career has taken a few big turns. It started with comedy, where she wrote her own songs in a duo called “Self Tort.” It took a pivot when she found herself as part of an opera group, and played Fleta in “Iolanthe.” At the checkpoint in which she realised music theatre was her destination, she even trained with an opera teacher who was then a student at Trinity Laban.

Despite that though, acting was always her strong suit. 

“I ended up doing opera for seven years and I was originally going to audition for the opera course at Trinity Laban,” Cook says. “But I then decided to go for musical theatre because that’s what I really wanted to do.”

Luckily, her decision to do so definitely didn’t go in vain.

Today, Cook is a third-year student in the BA (Hons) Musical Theatre Performance programme at Trinity Laban, and her palette of experience is plenty colourful. She’s gotten to play diverse roles in productions at the conservatoire, including the iconic character in its rendition of “High School Musical”: Mrs. Darbus.

In 2023, she was able to take a big step in her career — making her West End debut in “Diana: The Musical” as the character Holly, also known as “The Hostess.” She got to perform with acclaimed musical actors like Kerry Ellis, whom she’d grown up watching and listening to.

“Because [Diana: The Musical] is such a cult musical, it was a bit like a panto when we did it,” she says. “The crowd were cheering at their favourite lines. This feeling is something you can’t describe — I think there were about 3,000 seats in there, so it was absolutely amazing.”