Singing sushi chef

This month has marked two significant openings for Andrew Hahn, who turned 20 on 11/11/11. Hahn plays a jet-setting playwright in The Man Who Came to Dinner, the fall comedy at Butte College, which opened Nov. 10. Hahn is also a sushi chef at Big Tuna, which opened another restaurant where he also works, Izakaya Ichiban, on Nov. 11. Hahn just remembers being sleep deprived that whole week. “I’m sure I’ll have an age-crisis moment at some point,” he joked. Starting in the kitchen as a dishwasher a year and a half ago, Hahn has been trained as a traditional Japanese sushi chef. He was born in Southern California, moved to Durham in third grade, and graduated from Chico High School in 2010. At Chico High, Hahn got involved in filmmaking, completing several movie shorts. He’s taking his general-ed classes at Butte while considering a possible future in show business. As the British character Beverly Carleton in the Butte production, Hahn acted, sang and played piano. A pianist since age 5, Hahn also manages to give piano lessons to a couple of students.

Do you sing for customers while making sushi?

Sometimes, when it’s not too busy. If there’s a limited amount of people, we might put on Motown and sing a little. I mostly only sing when I’m working in back … Unless it’s karaoke night. That’s a different story. Then I sing Frank Sinatra.

Is making sushi difficult?

It’s really hard to do it the traditional way—enough to make you want to quit sometimes.

What do you see in your future?

I’m not sure. I may go into communications, or film, or music, or theater. In the next year I’ll probably move to L.A. or the Bay Area, go back to school, and then try to transfer to a four-year school. I might give acting a shot in one of those cities, and keep on doing sushi. Or, maybe do some more traveling.

Are you a world traveler?

This summer I was invited to go to Africa through a friend with connections to an orphanage there. I spent a month mostly tagging along with a doctor at Kilimanjaro Children’s Orphanage, helping out wherever I could. Then, I went to Barcelona, where I spent a week by myself hanging out, staying at a youth hostel. I took my script [for The Man Who Came to Dinner] on the trip, so I’d have something to read. The plane ride was 22 hours. So that’s how I got familiar with the show.