Tickets Available For Hoff’s Junior Theatre Benefit Concert

from the North County Times

Tony-winner Hoff back home to honor his theatrical roots
PAM KRAGEN -  pkragen at nctimes.com | Posted: Wednesday, August 26, 2009 8:15 am

Thirty-three years ago, a tow-headed 8-year-old Little Leaguer from La Jolla traded in his cleats and ball cap for a pair of tights and trumpet to play a boy page in San Diego Junior Theatre’s production of “Cinderella” at the Casa del Prado Theatre in Balboa Park.

On Monday, he’ll return to the stage that launched his career, and Tony Award-winning “Jersey Boys” star Christian Hoff says he hopes to inspire some of the young Junior Theatre actors who may want to follow in his footsteps.

Hoff will host a master class for young actors (ages 12 and up) on Monday afternoon, and then on Sept. 12, he’ll perform in concert to raise money for Junior Theatre programs. He’s now recording a CD of standards, jazz and pop tunes that will be for sale at the concert, with all revenues benefiting the theater.

Hoff said he’s wanted to give back to his theatrical birthplace for years, but “Jersey Boys” and other work commitments have kept him from fulfilling that goal.

“We wanted to create an opportunity for kids to do what they do and hear about life in the theater, my experiences and how to bridge their youth theater work into a professional career,” he said. “I want to talk to them about body language, finding their essence and having a respect for the discipline of the craft of acting. That’s what’s missing out there right now, that discipline and respect for the process.”

From his very first performance in “Cinderella,” Hoff said he knew he wanted a career onstage, and he dedicated himself to the craft.

“People told me they watched me in that show because I never broke character,” he said. “I remember getting lost in the focus of being up on stage and telling the story, and that’s a feeling that has never left me. In that instant, I understood the actor’s instinct.”

Hoff’s first teachers at Junior Theatre were Cardiff residents Don and Bonnie Ward. Later, Hoff studied under Ole Kittleson at the San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts. At age 12, he turned pro, winning a small part in an L.A. production of “Evita” directed by Harold Prince. Dozens of roles in theater, television and film followed through his teens and early 20s.

His first major break came at La Jolla Playhouse in the early 1990s, when former artistic director Des McAnuff cast him as a Pinball Lad in “Tommy,” a musical that went on to great success on Broadway. For a dozen years more, he plied his craft on television and in theater (including locally at Welk Resort Theatre, Moonlight Amphitheatre and North Coast Repertory Theatre). McAnuff came calling again in 2004, casting him in the life-changing role of Tommy DeVito, the street-tough co-founder of the Four Seasons vocal group in “Jersey Boys,” which also started in La Jolla and moved on to enormous success on Broadway.

Hoff’s gritty, scene-stealing performance earned him a Tony Award, high-profile gigs on TV’s “Law and Order” and “Ugly Betty” and a steady paycheck that allowed him to buy homes for his family —- including wife Melissa, and their two daughters, Elizabeth, 3, and Evelyn, 5 months —- in New Jersey and in Pauma Valley (much of Hoff’s family still lives here in North County).

And yet, last year Hoff decided to leave “Jersey Boys” after four years with the show.

“I did ‘Jersey Boys’ for 10 percent of my life,” said Hoff, 41. “After 1,500 performances, it becomes a part of you, but I wanted to see what else was out there.”

He first opportunity was the lead role in a troubled Broadway revival of “Pal Joey” last winter. Hoff withdrew from the show in previews after suffering a dance-related injury. It later opened (with Hoff’s understudy in the part) to mostly negative reviews. Producers were quoted as saying bloggers (who attended the first previews) poisoned the show with negative online postings about the cast, but Hoff said he has put the whole experience behind him.

“With ‘Pal Joey,’ my leaving the show was a blessing in disguise. My recovery was instantaneous and I bounced back right away,” he said. “You need a thick skin and resiliency as an actor. As a lover of life, I see challenges and adversity as opportunities.”

Hoff spent much of this summer playing Sky Masterson in “Guys and Dolls” at Ogunquit Theatre in Maine, a role he said he took for the opportunities it afforded his family (which also includes his two children from his first marriage, Eli, 14, and Erika, 9).

“It was a blast,” he said. “To have the opportunity to play Sky and to be together with my family on a working vacation, with all six of us tucked in a cabin with the woods behind us, it was heaven.”

Now, he’s back home in Pauma Valley, commuting back and forth to L.A., where’s he’s in rehearsals for a revival production of Jason Robert Brown’s musical “Parade,” which will open Oct. 4 at the Mark Taper Forum. The musical (based on the true story of Leo Frank, a factory manager wrongly convicted and lynched for a young girl’s murder in 1912 Atlanta) will star T.R. Knight (”Grey’s Anatomy”) as Frank and Hoff as the unscrupulous D.A. who seals Frank’s fate.

Asked if he thinks this production will eventually land him back on Broadway for the third time, Hoff says he never thinks that far ahead, preferring to focus for now on this show and the fundraising workshop and concert he’s got planned for San Diego Junior Theatre.

He’s excited to talk to the master class students on Monday, so he can encourage them to believe that a career in theater is possible. He got that same advice when he was 9 from Bonnie Ward, and he’s eager to pass it along.

“I was at the audition for ‘Mary Poppins,’ and Bonnie showed me a dance routine. I looked at her, with my hands in my pockets, a tyke right off the baseball field, and said I couldn’t do that. And she looked at me and said, ‘Yes, you can do it,’ and I did. Ever since that day, whenever I see her, she recounts that story and says, ‘Remember when you said you couldn’t do it?’

“Now it’s my turn, and I have the chance to tell these kids: ‘Yes, you can.’”

Christian Hoff master class
When: 4 to 6:30 p.m. Monday
Where: Casa Del Prado Theatre, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $50
Info: juniortheatre.com

Christian Hoff in concert
When: 8 p.m. Sept. 12
Where: Casa del Prado Theatre, Balboa Park, San Diego
Tickets: $50 to $100
Info: 619-239-8355
Web: juniortheatre.com