Starcatcher Baddie Kevin Del Aguila on Unleashing Altar Boyz, Playing with Christian Borle and Being Smee

Age & Hometown: “Timeless;” Lancaster, California

Current Role: A villainous Broadway debut as Smee, the right-hand man to Christian Borle’s Black Stache in Peter and the Starcatcher.

Punch Line: An actor, director and writer, Del Aguila (pronounced del AG-yeh-luh) boasts a career as diverse as his background. Half-British and half-Peruvian, Del Aguila caught the acting bug early thanks to his mother, who played the organ in church for his minister father. “There’s a joke in there somewhere and I’m the punch line,” he says with a laugh. Seeing a production of Sweeney Todd at the age of six inspired Del Aguila to write and perform his own production, a parody of Star Wars called Stupid Wars. Years later his love of performing was cemented when he joined an improv comedy class offered at a community college. “It was a turning point,” he remembers. “It was filled with incredibly talented and very gifted people. I found a little home for myself and I started to realize I can do this.”

Divine Intervention: After earning an MFA in Acting from Temple University in 1994, Del Aguila moved to New York City and began landing acting gigs in off-Broadway and regional theater. But it was his talents as a writer that first got him noticed when 6 Story Building, a play he wrote and performed in, became the hit of the 2002 New York International Fringe Festival and caught the eyes of a producer developing a show about a Christian boy band called Altar Boyz. “They had gone through many book writers before they found me and couldn’t make it work,” says Del Aguila, who joined the creative team of the off-Broadway musical and quickly helped turn things around. “Everything started to click and we thought, ‘We can’t wait to unleash this onto the world!’ I just felt so proud of it. They really are children that you give birth to and you’re proud when they run out and do so well in the world.” Altar Boyz ran for five years, becoming one of the longest running off-Broadway shows in history.

Off the Hook: Del Aguila was shocked when co-director Alex Timbers asked him to hit the stage again as an actor and audition for Peter and the Starcatcher. “It was kind of a dream that I put away for a long while,” he recalls of joining the company. “When the writing and the directing started to take off, I started acting less and I just thought that chapter of my life was coming to a close.” Instead, it seems, that chapter is just beginning. “Peter and the Starcatcher rejuvenated my love of performing,” admits Del Aguila. “These people have sparked that feeling in me again. I feel very lucky to be in their company… literally in their company.” And for him, there’s no better company than Christian Borle, who recently thanked Del Aguila from the stage of the 2012 Tony Awards while accepting his trophy. “Every Smee is only as good as his Captain," Del Aguila says. “I feel incredibly fortunate to have Christian as my captain on this voyage."