This is the first of a three-part series that focuses on siblings Caleb (a senior) and Kensington (a sophomore) Van Hook and their vast experience performing in live musical and theatrical productions nationwide since they were children. In this story, copy editor Serenity Li dives into the siblings’ upcoming roles in the adaptation of the 1963 Broadway musical-comedy, “Bye Bye Birdie,” and how they got interested in this field.
They can sing.
They can act.
They can dance.
“They’re both triple threats … which is hard to find [in live entertainment],” Sunny Hills theater teacher Christian Penuelas said.
Penuelas is referring to the Van Hook siblings, senior Caleb and sophomore Kensington (who also goes by Kensie). The two of them have a combined 23 years of theater experience, spending a majority of their time participating in a children’s drama group based in Fullerton called Spero Program for the Performing Arts.
The brother-sister duo, who worked with Penuelas as part of the cast in the 2023 production of “The Sound of Music,” have just finished the first weekend performance of Spero’s adaptation of “Bye Bye Birdie.”
The musical-comedy, first performed on Broadway in 1963, ends its run with a show on Friday, Nov. 15, at 7 p.m and two shows on Saturday, Nov. 16, at 2 and 7 p.m. at Hope International University in Fullerton.
Set in 1950s America, “Bye Bye Birdie” follows talent agent Albert Peterson as he organizes the last opportunity for his contracted teen heartthrob, singer Conrad Birdie, to perform before he is drafted to join the military. Peterson’s secretary, Rosie Alvarez, comes up with an idea to market Birdie’s situation by randomly picking a girl’s name from a list of fan club presidents.
The lucky “winner” then gets to have Birdie pay her and her town a visit and “kiss” her goodbye before his fans say, “Bye bye,” to him as he leaves town to fulfill his draft notice – hence the production’s title.
Caleb Van Hook plays Harry McAfee, who starts off as the stereotypical strict father but then turns into a camera hog when the McAfee family gets featured on the “Ed Sullivan Show.”
His younger sibling gets top billing as his daughter, Kim McAfee, the lucky recipient to receive Birdie’s farewell kiss.
This production also holds sentimental value for the brother since it’ll be his last one in children’s production and in Spero.
“I’m really sad because I’ve always done children’s theater since I was 6, and I’ve really loved the past few years,” said Caleb Van Hook, who played Rolf Gruber in SH’s “Sound of Music.” “When I was young, I really looked up to the teenagers, and for the past few years, I’ve gotten to be that person for the kids.”
This will be Kensie Van Hook’s second starring role following her 2023 stint as Ariel in Sunny Hills Youth Theater’s adaptation of Disney’s “The Little Mermaid.”
VIDEO CUTLINE: Kensie Van Hook as Ariel and Caleb Van Hook as Scuttle fully immersed in their roles in their performance of “The Little Mermaid” on Thursday, July 13, 2023, at Sunny Hills Children’s Theater. (Video credit: Sunny Hills Church of Christ)
“There are a lot of talented teenage girls at Spero, and I know all of them are very capable and talented, so I am very grateful and blessed for this opportunity,” said the younger sibling, who played Gretl Von Trapp in “Sound of Music.” “I have loved every second of getting to play this character and perform with the many other talented members of the cast.”
ALL IN THE FAMILY
Like the fictional “Sound of Music” Von Trapp family, the Van Hooks also come from a line of talented stage performers – primarily from their dad’s side of the family – spanning four generations.
Their father, Matt Van Hook, said he acted in several church and school productions during elementary school in the 1980s; in elementary school he portrayed Bryant in “Ants’hillvania.” Wrestling took up much of his time during his high school years, but the father ended up acting in two performances in his senior year — as the main character’s friend in an original musical, “Marty,” written by his school’s choir director, and as Sam Wainwright in the adaptation of the classic winter holiday, Frank Capra film, “It’s a Wonderful Life.”
“Both opportunities made me sad that I didn’t get the chance to perform all through junior high and high school, and it’s why I really wanted to make sure my kids would have the opportunities I never had,” he said.
Matt Van Hook said he had visited colleges such as Stanford, Harvard, Brown and the U.S. Military Academy, West Point, but ended up joining the Air Force Academy in 1995 after God led him there. After graduating from the academy in 1999, the father served in the Air Force as a pilot for 22 years and taught at the Air Force Academy as a political science professor from 2010-2012, then from 2015-2021.
In the military, the elder Van Hook said he had joined the Air Force Academy’s Bluebards theater group in which he played the role of Ligniere in “Cyrano de Bergerac.”
From 2021 to now, Matt Van Hook works as an assistant director of recruitment and marketing and a Torrey associate professor at Biola University in La Mirada, where he continues to perform in stage productions directed by some of his students (his last role being Leonato in William Shakespeare’s “Much Ado About Nothing”).
His own father was briefly in a band during his late teens and early 20s and also played guitar and sang in church for most of his adult life, and Matt Van Hook’s parents encouraged him to always keep music in his life, he said.
Besides the parent, the siblings’ great-grandmother, Ethel Lenti, was a dancer in New York vaudeville shows, Matt Van Hook said.
“Their great-great grandmother and great-grandmother were professional performers,” he said. “Their grandfather continued to make music a part of our lives, and then their father always loved acting and theater but never reached the level the Van Hook kids are at.”
Following her mother, Caleb and Kensie Van Hook’s paternal great-grandmother, Dorise Vance, sang in Hollywood nightclubs and the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim from the 1950s-1960s and only chose to stop pursuing fame after becoming a Christian, the Van Hooks’ mother said.
“Their great-grandmother knew Frank Sinatra and went to high school with a lot of the up-and-coming Hollywood stars at that point, and so she was set to become a starlet; we’ve got newspaper articles pointing in that direction,” Michelle Van Hook said.
Vance came to know Hollywood stars, including Sinatra, through her father who was the maître d’ at the Hollywood Palladium and would introduce her to the celebrities that came to dine and watch shows there, Matt Van Hook said. He still remembers the advice Vance gave him while he was attending elementary school during the 1980s.
“My grandmother always encouraged me to use my love of performing to honor God on stage by caring about the other performers and the audience rather than seek personal glory, and I am so proud that Caleb and Kensie always work hard to do exactly that, too,” the Van Hook father said.
Those interested in watching the Van Hooks’ performance in “Bye Bye Birdie” can purchase $15 tickets from the Spero website. Tickets may also be purchased at the door. Be on the lookout for Part 2 of the series.
