This week School of Theatre, Film & Television alum Naphtali Yaakov Curry (BFA Musical Theatre, ’20) returned to Tucson, playing a lead role in the national touring production of Shrek the Musical, which Broadway in Tucson hosted for two performances on March 6 and 7.
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 TFTV Associate 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. In his senior year, Curry was Bobby in The Legend of Georgia McBride.
And this week, he stood 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.”
In a subsequent review of the show, the Arizona Daily Star’s Cathy Burch wrote: “In the role of Donkey, Curry stole the show and the hearts of the audience, and not just because of a familial connection given his UA ties. Curry brought that same sense of silliness and lovability to the character as Eddie Murphy did in the film version. Curry was genuinely funny, from his impeccable comic timing to his physical comedy, including quivering and whining in a scene where he and Shrek cross a bridge over a lava river to rescue the princess.”
Read the original version of this story in the Arizona Daily Star.