April Rhodes

"I haven't had a drink in forty-five minutes!"

April Rhodes is a recurring character on Glee. She once went to William McKinley High School with Will Schuester. April appears in two episodes in the first season, The Rhodes Not Taken and Home. She returns in Season Two in the episode Rumours and is mentioned in New York, but does not appear. In The Purple Piano Project, it is mentioned by Rachel that the man playing alongside April in her own original Broadway show won a Tony award, meaning that the show is doing very well. She is invited to McKinley in Season Five by Will when the New Directions was about to be disbanded. She calls Holly Holliday to help her save the glee club. They did not succeed this mission but instead gives Will a proper closure with his glee club

She is portrayed by Tony and Emmy-award winning Broadway actress and singer, Kristin Chenoweth.

Early life
April is a talented singer who dropped out of high school in an attempt to go to Broadway, but her dreams sadly did not come true, as she found herself pregnant with twins. After giving them up for adoption, she tried to find work on Broadway, but to no avail. She soon became an alcoholic and was eventually found by Will who encouraged her to get sober. After a long journey, April does decide to get sober as she wishes to go to Broadway and put up the first all white performance of "The Wiz".

S1= Will decides to track April down and arranges a meeting at her mansion. April, drunk, greets Will who soon discovers that she is in fact a squatter and is broke. Will convinces April to return to school and join New Directions, which she does. When April is introduced to the glee kids, they question if older people may now join the club. April then belts out a confident performance of Maybe This Time. After some trouble in class, Will tells April to bond with the kids and so, she teaches Mercedes and Tina to shoplift, hooks up with Puck, Matt, and Mike and gives Kurt some male muscle magazines and liquor. She later does some bowling with Will, who reveals his admiration of April who, flattered, leads Will to sing Alone with her. She later shows up drunk to the club's invitationals, after almost hitting Emma with her car. This upsets Will and leads him to kick her out after a performance of Last Name, in which she performs lead vocals. Before he could kick her out however, she admits to Will that she knows that high school is no longer her world and that she has no place in the school or up on stage with the kids. Instead, she decided to leave on her own, wishing Will and the kids well. (The Rhodes Not Taken)

April later appears when Will is searching for a new place for the club to rehearse. April is singing at her roller rink (Rinky Dinks) and gets Will to sing Fire with her before offering up her rink as a rehearsal space. April also reveals that she is still drinking and is now the mistress of an elderly strip mall tycoon. April also expresses her desire to sleep with Will and so, she visits him at his apartment and sleeps over, singing One Less Bell to Answer/A House Is Not a Home with him. She also expresses how she doesn't want to be alone anymore. Will once again attempts to persuade April to better herself and so April agrees to break it off with her new man. She later tells Will that her lover died and his wife gave her $2,000,000 in order to keep the affair a secret. April reveals that she is going to get sober and go to Broadway in order to put up the first all white performance of The Wiz. Lastly, April buys the auditorium for the Glee Club (renaming it the "The April Rhodes Civic Pavilion") and performs Home for Will with the glee kids singing back up. (Home) S2= April returned to McKinley High soon after her all-white show of The Wiz was universally panned on Broadway. She had decided to create her own musical about her life, and was surprisingly contacted by Terri Del Monico who suggested she ask Will to help her with the show. April jumped at the chance, and Will was more than happy to help. April eventually asked Will to join her on Broadway, which Will was very tempted. Sue and Terri meanwhile tried to "help" Will's decision to join April, but he instead opted to stay at McKinley. During her visit, she inspires Will to reunite New Directions by singing Fleetwood Mac songs, and together they perform a duet of Dreams. She is later seen sitting with Will in the auditorium watching the New Directions, Stevie, and Stacey perform Don't Stop. (Rumours)

While in New York, Will meets April's manager and tells him that she and the crew were having lunch. (New York) S5= Mr. Schue introduces April to the Students to help him demonstrate this weeks assignment. She greets the club with a "Hey, Ya'll." Tina tells Marley that April once taught her how to shoplift meat in her Vagina. She tells the students and Will that her ex-boyfriend bought her an island in the Caribbean with her own man servant. She gives the students virgin Spumante to lead into Raise Your Glass, which she sings with Will. Before the performance she says that she always had a soft spot for prep school boys and pulls on Blaine's nose and says "honk!" She watches the Toxic performance, and afterwards says, "that is what I'm talking about kiddos," and then asks what Biff thought about it as he was texting throughout the whole performance. Later, April and Will go to Sue in her office and say that since April is the one paying for the auditorium then the glee club can keep going and move full-time to the auditorium. This leads Sue to investigate as something feels fishy to her. April watches Kurt, Mercedes, and Rachel sing Defying Gravity. After the song she says "that song should be on the Broadway." Later, April comes up to Kurt and Blaine and asks about their engagement and says that she is excited because America needs more teen marriage. She gives them some hooch as a wedding gift because it will dull the pain of their wedding night sodomy and the impending divorce soon after. She is seen watching and enjoying Santana and Brittany perform Valerie and at one point stands up and dances a little bit. She cheers and claps at the end of it. April also watches Puck sing Keep Holding On in the auditorium. Her, Will, Quinn, and Puck are the only ones that don't join in on the dance on the stage. She stands up and leaves with Will after the song. Later on, April and Will are seen in Sue's office again and Sue says that she has done research on Wikipedia and that she has discovered that the money that was to pay for the auditorium has been used up by Will and the Glee club. April says that she is rich, but Sue says that she is under indictment by the Securities and Exchange Commission and under violation of her bail that says she can't leave New York. This means that all of her assets have been frozen, and that the Glee club is indeed over. Will walks out angry and April chases him and says she can explain. Will calls her a pathological liar and she agrees with him. He goes on to say that she did the worst thing she could have possibly done by giving him hope. Before the diva-off vote April says that they can use their left hand as to keep it a secret who the vote was written by, and that Sam can use his foot since he is left handed. Then April apologizes for raising their hopes and then letting them down. She then brings in Holly Holiday in an attempt to cheer them all up. April and Holly tell Will that there is a Facebook page for all the guests of the glee club and that is how they know each other. April performs in Happy and is seen dancing throughout the performance and then taking a drink out of her bottle which is presumably alcohol as Will stops her. The episode ends with April and Holly sitting in the rafters of the auditorium watching Will thank the older New Directions for going on this ride with him. They are drinking wine and they vow to save the Glee club together. (100)

The episode opens with April and Holly playing "Kill, Marry, or bone," in the teacher's lounge when Sue comes in and joins them. Sue insults April, but then says that since April is hanging out with Holly, then it's ok. April asks about Holly and Sue being friends. Then Holly and Sue are shown in matching track uniforms for their Amazing Race audition tape in which they talk about what they are looking forward to on the race and tie their legs together to practice racing together. Holly and April then ask if they can bring more music to the school that isn't Glee club. Sue allows them to try and bring music to other extra curricular activities and asks them to try and involve Will in their plans as a way to soften the blow on him. After Don't Stop Believin', April and Holly are seen standing and watching everyone on stage. April tells Holly that she did good. Holly says that their work is done and they looked flawless doing it. Then she asks April to go on a gay boy cruise with her, and she says yes and they walk away together. This marks the last appearance of April Rhodes in the whole show. (New Directions)

Personality
April is laid-back and pays no attention to consequences, as shown with her constant squatting. She has an addictive personality and no problem being in a relationship for money. She apparently is very wild and enjoys parties, drinking and is easily entertained, although she denies and doesn't like to talk about how she may be addicted. She is confident and talented, but also very unprofessional for a singer, who appears to have given up on her dreams and now has no ambition. She doesn't appear to think about setting a good example, or worry about consequences, however seems to have good intentions on the whole. She is likable, fun, with a magnetic personality and a love for beverages. On the minus side, however, she lets this easily go out of control. She is extremely honest and upfront about being a washed up hasbeen.

Appearance
April's fashion sense seems very bold and distinctive. She wears colorful, clashing items, which not many people attempt to pull off. She also appears to enjoy dressing as a cow-girl. Her outfits are usually skin-tight to show off her body.

Relationships
Will Schuester=

(Wapril/Rhodester)

Will had a crush on April when was a freshman and she was a senior in the high school Glee Club, but she didn't give him the time of day. In The Rhodes Not Taken, Will looks up his old crush online and gets her to return to New Directions to help win Regionals. But, his real reason for looking up April is to see what his life would have been like if he hadn't married Terri. Later in Home, Will runs into April at a local roller rink. They hit it off and April invites herself over to his house. They sleep in the same bed, but do not make love. Will isn't interested in a relationship with April if she is still drinking so he convinces her to sober up and head back to Broadway.

In Rumours, Terri convinces April to return to McKinley in hopes that she can lure Will away from New Directions. The sparks fly when they sing Dreams and April asks Will to join her show on Broadway. But, Will decides to stay with the Glee Club and Emma. Noah Puckerman=

She slept with him in an attempt to get him on her side. Later on, when she is drunk, they kiss before going onstage to sing Last Name. Finn Hudson=

April admits to Rachel that she has a crush on Finn. Rachel gets upset and tells her he's taken. Kurt Hummel=

April gives Kurt alcohol because she wants to get him on her side so she can stay in the New Directions. Later Kurt throws up on Emma's shoes because he has had too many drinks. Rachel Berry=

April and Rachel meet for the first time on the choir room, where Rachel learns April is getting the female solo part in Don't Stop Believing. They later run into each other in the bathroom, where they have a disagreement. April starts saying how hotter are now the high school male students than in her times, adding that she has her eye on "that Finn Hudson." Rachel, who is visibly offended, replies that she thinks her behavior is completely inappropriate, and she shouldn't be screwing up other people.

They seem to be completely opposed people, but they share some similarities: for instance, they both had interest in Finn and, when April chose the song to audition with at the Glee Club, she chose Maybe This Time, from Cabaret, the musical the school was doing and in which Rachel was starring as the protagonist.

Songs
Total - 12

S1=
 * Solos


 * Solos (In a Group Number)

Trivia

 * In every season April has appeared in, she sings at least two duets with Will.
 * However, their duet was cut from New Directions, but still released.


 * It has been suggested by some that the character of April Rhodes was inspired by Amy Sedaris's character Jerri Blank on the TV show Strangers with Candy. While the producers of Glee have never confirmed this, the similarities between April and Jerri abound. Both are high school dropouts with substance abuse problems who return to high school as adults and have a negative influence on the other students. In addition, many people think that Chenoweth and Sedaris look alike.

Quotes
"Branson, eh?"

"Stick that in your pipe and smoke it."

"I gots my eye on that Finn Hudson."

"You really thought that much of me?"

"Alright fellas, grab a gal! Or, grab another fella if that's the way the good lord made ya!"

"Wait... I smell somethin'. I smell a duet comin' on!"

"I'm gonna wanna check the place out. I'm gonna wanna check the fong-shwong or the fing-fong or whatever they call it... Tell you what, I'm gonna go get myself a bikini wax... and I'ma see you tomorrow!"

"Well as I live and breathe! Will Schuester? I just had a sex dream about you!"

"You know what I call an afternoon where I get drunk? An afternoon!"

"Excuse me, do you know where a gal can find a pipin' hot cup of Will Schuester?"

"We are about to pop the cork with some bubbly. But don’t worry, this Spumante is virgin, probably like you will be for a long time."

"If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a million times, the one thing this country needs more of is teen marriage."

"I’ve got you a wedding present. It’s a little hooch. It’ll help dull the excruciating pain of your wedding night sodomy and the inevitable divorce that you’re careening towards a couple months later."

"I’d marry Will and have sex with Figgins. See, I’ve gotten real good at getting my soul to float above my body when I’m doing the nasty, so I’d cringe my way through a sweaty hump session with Figgins and bone Will Schuester well into my sixties."