So when I came to Oberlin, I found a really great theater community that was so supportive, plus the amazing facilities, the wide variety of works performed, and the faculty doing lights and costumes. So I decided to give it a try. Tully proceeded to appear in productions as Menelaus in Women of Troy , the narrator-solider in War Music, Polixines in The Winter's Tale, an ensemble member in To Be Young, Gifted and Black, and Horatio in Hamlet. The summer after I graduated, my father came to see me as Ferdinand in the Black River summer production of Shakespeare's The Tempest , and he was blown away when he saw how theater was done here. He said it's more like off-Broadway.
Students here can direct, experiment, do any aspect of theater.
I got really spoiled. Despite his immersion in theater at Oberlin, Tully didn't abandon other interests. He set a record for the 300-meter dash as All Conference athlete and continued his interest in music, studying piano with Peter Takacs as well as orchestral conducting, and graduated with a major in theater and music performance. Between graduation and The Sopranos, Tully trained at the William Esper and Actors Movement studios in New York City and appeared in productions with the Big Apple's Wooster Group, Ensemble Studio Theater, La MaMa, and the New York Theater Workshop, and at the Hampton, New York, Shakespeare Festival. When Smith learned that Tully was a classically trained pianist, she wrote a pivotal role in the play for him, that of a Cuban piano teacher.