Sanford Alum's Success Featured in The Media

If you’re going to see “Pitch Perfect” this weekend, the latest film to capitalize on America’s fascination with teen harmonizing, give a shout-out to Hockessin’s own T.J. Potter.

He’s the one in the blue shark robe exercising his pipes with the Hullabahoos, the University of Virginia’s a capella group.

A sophomore at UVA, Potter is not one to crow about his accomplishments. Luckily, his family will do it for him.

“Whenever he performs, I’m just so proud of him,” gushes his older sister, Katie, who saw the musical comedy last week when it opened in Boston. The movie opened nationwide Friday.

While she jokes that her brother, an electrical engineering major, is “probably not the next Brad Pitt,” Katie Potter was pleased to see a flash of him when the Hullabahoos performed during the final competition scene. He also appears in the credits.

Loosely adapted from a book of the same name, “Pitch Perfect” follows an all-girl a capella group as they compete in an international contest. The movie includes hefty doses of parental angst over the central character’s dream of becoming a DJ and her forbidden love with a rival singer from the all-boy “Treble Makers.”

Sixteen Hullabahoos scored the gig based on – what else? – connections. The founder of the troupe, UVA alum Halsted Sullivan, is a producer and writer for “The Office.” Sullivan is also good friends with “Pitch Perfect” director Jason Moore.

Not coincidentally, seven members of the Hullabahoos, including Potter, will appear on “The Office’s” Halloween episode airing Oct. 25 on NBC. They will represent Cornell, character Andy Bernard’s alma mater. Bernard (played by Ed Helms) waxes nostalgic on the show about his a capella days at the Ivy League institution.

Potter learned last year that his group would appear in “Pitch Perfect.” The guys rented an RV, drove to Baton Rouge, La., and got paid about $1,200 each for roughly two hours of work. They spent most of the day on set marveling at lighting tricks and camera angles that obscured dance missteps.

They had lunch in the same room as stars Anna Kendrick and Brittany Snow, but didn’t get to talk to either one of them. Producer Elizabeth Banks did request a photo with the fresh-faced young men.

Later, Potter was invited to join the Screen Actors Guild.

“It was my first year in college and it looked like I had peaked,” he said.

His parents, a DuPont engineer and an IT support specialist, were more realistic.

“His father kept saying he’s going to end up on the cutting room floor,” Potter’s mother, Sharon, recalls.

Working on “The Office” set was a cozier experience for Potter. The group was flown out for a week in Hollywood to portray Cornell’s “Here Comes Treble.” They chatted up Leslie David Baker, who plays the curmudgeonly Stanley on the show.

After being serenaded by a soloist, Jenna Fischer (aka Pam) commented to Sullivan that now she knew how it felt to want a younger man, Potter remembers. Hullabahoo Nick Cafero wouldn’t stop beaming after that.

He can’t divulge any more details about “The Office” episode, because he had to sign a confidentiality agreement. “They told us that you don’t want to ruin Halloween for America,” he says.

Potter, who would have no problem getting a job at Abercrombie & Fitch based on his looks, admits that females on campus occasionally swoon when his group performs. The guys typically do four concerts a year, along with touring college campuses. They are planning a trip to the University of Maryland later this fall and will stop by for dinner at the Potters’ house.

Founded in 1987, the award-winning Hullabahoos have performed before President Barack Obama, former president George W. Bush and the Washington Nationals baseball team.

Potter hasn’t let the fame go to his head. He toyed with the idea of majoring in music but ultimately selected engineering, because it is “a much more practical approach.” His parents wholeheartedly agree.

“It’s a really hard business to be successful in,” notes Sharon Potter. “I think of the thousands of kids trying to make it big in the world of performing arts. It’s tough with so many rejections.”

Still, the family, including Potter’s 89-year-old grandmother, went to Cinemark Movies 10 in Stanton Friday night to support their boy.

Potter and his singing crew plan to watch the movie near UVA’s campus today.

“He is a kind-hearted, very nice young man,” says Sharon Potter. When she had bilateral carpal tunnel surgery last summer, her son toiled in the brutal heat to resurrect her garden of impatiens, marigolds and geraniums.

A tenor, Potter began his stage career as soon as he could stomp.

He recalls dressing up as a lion to sing at church with his birth mother, Cindy, who passed away when he was 5 years old.

His first big break was playing “Les Miserable’s” Gavroche as a sixth-grader. Later, he joined every performing arts group at the Sanford School, starring in several productions. He also plays trumpet in UVA’s marching band.

For Potter, singing at his home church, St. Stephen’s Lutheran Church in Wilmington, brings him closer to his birth mother.

“There are few memories that are very solid in my mind about her,” he says. “That was one connection I’ll always have.”

Contact Margie Fishman at 324-2882 or mfishman@ delawareonline.com.