This UA alum will have a 'full circle moment' when 'Shrek the Musical' comes to Tucson

Naphtali Yaakov Curry is sure he will cry when he steps on the Centennial Hall stage on Wednesday, March 6.

He’ll be dressed in a donkey costume as one of the leads in “Shrek the Musical,” which Broadway In Tucson is hosting for two performances Wednesday, March 6 and Thursday, March 7; Wednesday’s show was added after the show on Thursday sold out not long after it was announced in late November.

“I already know when I get there I will cry,” the 2020 University of Arizona alumnus said. “I remember going to the discounted ticket days at Centennial where you wait in the long line and you buy the $20 tickets for every show that’s coming in for the whole season throughout the year. To be able to come back and to be one of those people performing is a full-circle moment.”

“Shrek” is Curry’s first Broadway tour and his biggest break since he returned to his native Chicago after graduating at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. After a slow start to his career with theaters nationwide shuttered, Curry landed in the ensemble cast of Porchlight Music Theatre’s run of “Rent” in 2022. Since then, he’s had roles in Chicago’s Black Ensemble Theater production of “Real Housewives of Motown” and Chicago Shakespeare Theater’s production of “Twelfth Night.”

Then came “Shrek,” which opened in Utica, New York, on Feb. 24 and will continue through early August before a short break in the fall; it resumes in October.

“This is just the biggest thing I have booked since graduating,” he said during a phone call in January from New York City, where the cast was rehearsing. “I am very nervous, but good nerves. ... I’ve never done a tour.”

Curry joins a growing list of UA School of Theatre, Film & Television bachelor of fine arts graduates working in the industry including 2018 alumnus and Tucson native Vinessa Vidotto, who plays Special Agent Cameron Vo on the CBS series “FBI: International“ and Tony Moreno, a 2021 BFA musical theater grad who is on Broadway with “The Book of Mormon.“

“We want students to work in any capacity that makes them feel successful,” said UA acting professor Danny Gurwin.

Gurwin is the reason that Curry landed at the UA. The Chicago native said Gurwin conducted a masterclass at his performing arts high school when he was a junior and “I just really enjoyed the vibe I got from him.”

When he came to the UA to audition, “I just fell in love with the campus, the program, and I kind of knew at that moment, ‘yeah, UA is the place I’m going to go,’” Curry said.

“He always had this amazing spark about him,” Gurwin recalled of Curry. “He was always impressive. I think even in high school when I first saw him, he had a sense of self and I knew at the time he was going to be a great student. He was very talented.”

While at the UA, Curry played Ronald McCowan in “Hands On a Hardbody” as a freshman in 2016. The next year, he understudied in the “Addams Family” and “Pajama Game” before landing a lead role in his junior year as Eddie in “Sister Act.”

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In his senior year, Curry was Bobby in “The Legend of Georgia McBride.”

And on Wednesday, he will stand on the stage of his alma mater with many of his former professors and classmates in the audience in what could be his career breakout moment.

“It’s hard to wrap my head around it, to be back in Tucson and be performing a sold-out show in Tucson. It’s crazy,” he said. “I’m excited to be back and I hope those who were following my journey there … who saw me at the beginning of starting my career are now seeing me at this moment in my life.”

Three years after Curry graduated, the UA School of Theatre, Film & Television last February scrapped its BFA Musical Theatre program to focus resources on film and television. The school will graduate its final BFA Musical Theatre class in 2026.

If you go

What: "Shrek the Musical"

Presented by: Broadway In Tucson

When: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday-Thursday, March 6-7

Where: Centennial Hall, 1020 E. University Blvd., on the University of Arizona campus

Tickets: $40-$95 through broadwayintucson.com; there are plenty of tickets available for the Wednesday performance but only about a dozen left for Thursday.

Run time: 2 hours and 20 minutes with an intermission