Walter Tunis as Falstaff, Jesse Hungerford as Edward (Ned) Poins and Trent Fucci as Prince Hal rehearse SummerFest's production of William Shakespeare's "Henry IV, Part 1," being presented July 8-12 at the Arboretum on Alumni Drive. Photo by Rich Copley | LexGo.com.

Trent Fucci was doing what was normal for guys in his family.

His grandfather, Dominic Anthony Fucci, was an All-American in football and baseball at the University of Kentucky in the late 1940s, and he briefly played for the Detroit Lions in the National Football League.

His father, Sam Fucci, was a baseball and track standout at Tates Creek High School and played baseball for Auburn University. His uncle, Dominic Anthony Fucci Jr., was the 1975 Kentucky Mr. Basketball who also played baseball for Auburn and was drafted by the Chicago White Sox, making it to the teams’ Triple A affiliate.

Trent’s cousin, Ryan Fucci, is currently a baseball standout at Tates Creek.

As Trent was getting started in sports, playing T-Ball, his mom, Holly Fucci, noticed that whenever he wasn’t on the field, he was over at the stands, “entertaining the audience,” Fucci recalls, catching himself referring to sports fans as, “the audience.”

Fucci says, “My mom said, ‘We need to get you into a theater program.’”

And he did do some theater, in school at Tates Creek. But he also stayed with sports, all the way through his Freshman year at Transylvania University, where he played baseball.

“Finally, it became apparent that I needed to focus on theater,” Fucci says.

And his stage career since is another example why as much as we watch college sports programs to look for future sports stars, it’s also worth watching the stages for future marquee actors.

Fucci has gone on to graduate school at the University of Central Florida in Orlando, where he will spend his last year, the 2010-11 academic year, as an intern at the Orlando Shakespeare Theater.

And it was Orlando and the prestigious Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival that helped point Fucci toward his biggest role in his hometown.

Looking for a monologue to perform in the Festival, a couple of University of Central Florida professors pointed Fucci to Prince Hal from William Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I. Fucci’s performance of the monologue that ends Act I earned him the classical acting award in the competition.

This week, Fucci will expand his performance of that role from a signature monologue to the entire show in SummerFest’s production of Henry IV, Part I.

“The most challenging part is developing the character from the beginning through the middle and end,” Fucci says. “With Prince Hal, I truly start the play as one person, go on a journey, and in the end I am someone else.”

Trent Fucci plays Prince Hal in SummerFest's production of "Henry IV, Part I."

This is, of course, not the first time Fucci has gone on that journey or played on the SummerFest stage. He has actually been in the Shakespearian productions in the Arboretum the last three summers, playing supporting roles. And he has played other major leads.

“I’ve yelled, ‘Stella!’ in the Little Theatre at Transy,” he says, recalling his performance as Stanley Kowalski in a Transylvania University Theatre production of A Streetcar Named Desire.

But Prince Hal is a towering challenge, and it could be a role he’ll take on again.

SummerFest has talked about the possibility of doing Henry IV, Part II and Henry V in future summers, depending on how well the current production is received.

Fucci says he has not gone looking ahead at Hal in the future plays a lot because he wants to play the character as his is written in Part I.

But he is electrified by the prospect he might be able to come back and carry the character through another play or two.

“It is an actors dream to carry one character through three summers and three shows,” Fucci says.

Of course, even if SummerFest programs the subsequent Henrys, Fucci’s ability to live that dream would depend on his career trajectory and what other opportunities may compete with another SummerFest stand.

For this summer, Fucci having fun giving Hal some of his athleticism and a manic energy, verbally and physically jousting with Falstaff, played by Walter Tunis, much to the consternation of his stage father, played by Eric Johnson.

In his Fucci’s own family, there is no consternation that his career took a different tack from the family tradition.

“You hear about people whose families aren’t behind them,” Fucci says. “My family has always been supportive, there for every show. I think my grandmother cries at every show, even if it’s a comedy.”