This Sunday, Darren Criss will hold an intimate summer concert at the Ford Theater, where he’ll play all kinds of music from his career.
Criss rose to stardom after he portrayed Blaine Anderson in the TV show “Glee.” And he performed in Broadway musicals like “Hedwig and the Angry Inch” and “Chess.” But he also wants to emphasize the beginning of his career at this weekend’s concert.
“I also had my own career before all of this on YouTube with songs that I had written and musicals that I had written that, if it weren't for those songs, I don't think I would have been able to be on shows like ‘Glee’ or do anything on Broadway for that matter,” Criss says. “So I try to give something for everybody.”
Criss’ passion for music started not with singing but playing instruments, he shares. “I was a classical violinist. … I play guitar and piano and drums and a couple of things — kind of jack of all trades, master of none.”
Criss points out that LA, where he moved to from his San Francisco hometown, was where he had his “beginning nexus into the entertainment world.” And in the Cahuenga corridor, he and his wife, Mia Sweier, own a piano bar called Tramp Stamp Granny’s. There, people can drink and sing show tunes all night long.
“When I moved to Hollywood, I moved right down the street, Whitley and Franklin. I came here because of The Hotel Cafe, just to be part of … the singer-songwriter scene … that's always been there. But certainly as … a 22-year-old kid, being around people in that oeuvre was really important to me,” he says. “It’s right in the center of so many things that I love.”