Nestled among the redwoods just outside La Honda in the Santa Cruz Mountains, YMCA Camp Jones Gulch looks like a typical nature camp. But the scene inside the rustic dining hall during the Young Actors' Theatre Camp, held there each winter, is more like a Broadway musical come to life.
At lunchtime, as a series of contemporary pop songs and numbers from recent musicals blast from the speakers, kids spontaneously and unself-consciously burst into song and dance - the thing musical haters insist would never happen in real life.
A teenage boy grabs a broom, hops up on the table where the pizza had been served moments before, and takes the lead, performing "Defying Gravity" from "Wicked," with fellow campers below dancing and chiming in on the chorus. When a song from "Shrek, the Musical," comes on, another group falls into precise choreography learned here two summers ago from "Shrek" choreographer Josh Prince.
"They just jump up and do it," says counselor-in-training Adam Siegel, who graduated from Pleasanton's Amador Valley High and is now a freshman theater student at the University of Southern California. "It's kind of like 'Glee.' "
The camp gets even more like "Glee" after lunch when Darren Criss, the newest cast member from that hit musical TV show, leads a master class in this same room. The hallmark of the 9-year-old camp, which offers a range of classes and activities in a seven-day winter and an 11-day summer session, is bringing in industry professionals from stage, film and TV to inspire the campers, ages 8 to 18. The winter camp ended Sunday.
Criss, 23, is a San Franciscan who made his stage debut at age 10 with the 42nd Street Moon production of "Fannie" and learned his craft in ACT's Young Conservatory Program (he was in "A Christmas Carol" one year). He attended Stuart Hall for Boys, graduated from St. Ignatius High School and was a counselor at the Catholic Youth Organization summer camp in Occidental.
In 2009, during his senior year at the University of Michigan, he starred as Harry Potter and wrote songs for the parody "A Very Potter Musical," performed for friends and family.
"We just shot it for ourselves. Nobody was supposed to ever see it," Criss says. But when it got posted on YouTube it became a viral hit. It and 2010's "A Very Potter Sequel" together have earned more than 5 million views and counting. They put Criss' Chicago-based StarKid production company on the map and launched his unexpected career as a composer of musicals. He also writes and performs songs with his own band.
In November, he joined the cast of "Glee." Straight in real life, he plays Blaine, an out gay member of a boys' school chorus who becomes a mentor (and possible love interest?) to gay character Kurt, played by Chris Colfer, who is gay in real life.
"Having been inadvertently raised by the gay community by being raised in theater in San Francisco, I think it's wonderful that this character is on network TV," says Criss. "That I get to be the vessel of that is very humbling."
First-time camper Olivia Hoffman, 14, a freshman at Oakland School of the Arts, says when she learned that Criss would be at the winter camp, she told her parents she just had to go. She became a Criss fan through "A Very Potter Musical" and says his "Glee" role was "just an extra awesome thing about him."
When Criss enters the hall for a Q&A session, the kind of high-pitched screams that girls usually reserve for rock stars greet him. Entertainment Weekly named the handsome half-Filipino, half-Irish heartthrob one of the 30 sexiest stars of 2010. Although Shawn Ryan, who founded and co-directs the camp with husband John Ainsworth, advises the campers before Criss' arrival, "You may think of him as a celebrity, but give it 10 minutes and you'll find he's just another kid like you. Five years ago he was in high school."
Appearing scruffier than his blazered TV character, unshaven and wearing glasses, jeans and tan saddle shoes, he is charming, funny and warm as he takes smart, thoughtful questions from the kids for an hour. Then he performs five songs variously on piano and guitar, inviting the kids to sing along. He closes with Katy Perry's "Teenage Dream," which he did on "Glee" and is the show's No. 1 downloaded song to date. Perry joined him on it at a recent benefit for the Trevor Project to prevent suicide among gay youth.
"The message of being who you are is so strong on 'Glee,' and it's something we stress as well," says Ryan. "It's a powerful message that really means something to these kids."
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