By Kevin Herrera
Daily Press Staff Writer

SM PLAYHOUSE John Waroff, a fixture at the Santa Monica Playhouse for more than 30 years, gets a kick out of playing Santa Claus every December — a kick in the shins that is.

Having become Santa Monica’s jolly ole’ Saint Nick, Waroff, an actor and associate director of the playhouse, has seen those who have been naughty and those who have been nice. He prefers the latter.

“There’s something special about being Santa Claus,” said Waroff, a 61-year-old thespian with a fluffy white and brown beard, glasses and a pleasant, calm demeanor reminiscent of the red-cheeked resident of the North Pole. “You experience some of the sweet things about kids and some of the really rotten things about kids. Many times I’ve been Santa Claus and I’ll be in the lobby handing out candy canes after a show and some little kid will come along and kick me right in the shin for no reason.

“And the greed level gets to you a little bit. I have sympathy for the guys (playing Santa) in the mall and stuff,” Waroff said. “It’s all, ‘I want, I want, I want.’ You know, Christmas is the greatest form of bribery. It makes kids be good in December.”

But playing Santa isn’t all that bad, otherwise he wouldn’t do it year after year. Waroff has the opportunity every holiday to make someone’s Christmas special, to touch someone’s heart and help remind them what the spirit of the season truly is — and it’s not about buying stuff, but about bringing loved ones together.

“What’s really special is seeing the smiles on people’s faces,” when they leave the theater, he said. “Sometimes you see tears in their eyes … And then you have the kids coming up to you and giving you a big hug. I will never get tired of that.

“Getting kicked in the shins is different,” Waroff said with a smile. “But when they hug you, it’s really worth it.”

That’s why Waroff has grown out his itchy beard and is suiting up to play the character he is most known for at the playhouse during a special, holiday presentation of “Alias Santa Claus,” a production written and directed by playhouse members Evelyn Rudie and Chris DeCarlo.

The musical comedy, which features Actor’s Repertory Theatre members James Cooper, Serena Dolinsky, Cydne Moore and Waroff, with special appearances by Nima Ghassemian, Jasmine Gutierrez and Jackie Murray, follows the Mathews family and Nick, a jolly, bearded stranger who shows up for a visit on a cold and blustery December eve in the late 1800s. Together, Nick and the “Little House on the Prairie” style family learn some valuable lessons about the true meaning of friendship, family, the spirit of giving and the joy earned from kindness to strangers.

“Alias Santa Claus,” which had its world premier at the playhouse in 1976 and still features three of the original cast members, includes heart warming tunes such as “It’s Not What You Have, But What You Do With What You Do Have,” and “Leave a Light in the Window for Santa.”

Performances began Dec. 1 and run through Dec. 16. Show times are Saturdays and Sundays at 12:30 p.m. and 3 p.m.

While the musical takes place in the 1800s, the story is still relevant today, Waroff said.

“We are really bombarded by this, ‘Buy, buy, buy’ with Christmas starting earlier every year … ,” he said. “There are some valuable lessons to be learned. We’re not asking people to go out and adopt a vagrant, but what we are saying is don’t judge a book by its cover. There is worth out there. You just have to acknowledge that it exists.”

Getting locals to acknowledge that a talented performing arts community exists in Santa Monica is a tough proposition, Waroff said. So often, people look to downtown or Hollywood for entertainment and do not give Santa Monica productions a chance.

“Our mailing list is quite heavily in the (San Fernando) Valley,” Waroff said. “Santa Monicans think that you’ve got to go elsewhere for good entertainment while people in the Valley think you have to go to Santa Monica. I guess it will start to change more as traffic gets worse. When it takes you two hours to get from one place to another, forget it. No one is going to take all day to go to the theater at night.”

“We’re doing OK. We’re surviving,” Waroff said of the playhouse, located on Fourth Street just south of Wilshire Boulevard. “But we are doing a lot of things besides the shows.”

The playhouse hosts several workshops a week for kids and adults and hosts special performances for schools to help pay the bills. It’s difficult, Waroff said, but well worth the hard work when patrons leave with smiles on their faces.

That feeling of accomplishment that comes when the curtain falls is what attracted Waroff to the theater when was just 8 years old. The Los Angeles native was living next to a school when one day he saw children building a set for a play. He decided to join in and he has been hooked ever since.

“From that day forward, I knew I wanted to be in theater,” he said.

Waroff didn’t come from a wealthy family, which makes his choice to become an actor more daring then most. His parents divorced when he was an infant and his mother went on to earn a living as a seamstress. The family opened up a coffee shop/truck stop in Norwalk, but they went bankrupt, leaving the unsuccessful venture with only $1.78 in their pockets. Waroff took a chance becoming an actor. It’s not the most stable or lucrative job available, but his mother supported him and he stuck with it.

“I never told anyone that I was going to be an actor,” he said. “I think the first time they knew about it was when I was in a play and I had them buy tickets. They loved it. It was a lot of fun.”

Waroff hooked up with the playhouse when he ran into someone who had rented it for a production. Waroff and a friend were planning to hitchhike to New York to find work, but when he heard about the playhouse, that was all she wrote.

“I was thinking Santa Monica is so much closer than New York … so this is where I ended up.”

Luckily for a countless number of children and their families, Waroff has remained, always willing to grow out his beard, put on his red suit and remind people about the true meaning of Christmas.

kevinh@smdp.com