Stephen Plunkett

Hometown: Denton, Texas, "just north of Dallas"

Currently: Morphing from a Brooklyn policeman in charge of locating dead bodies to a Louisiana dad whose hunting dog escaped under an electric fence, among other colorful characters, in the off-Broadway musical revue Gone Missing.

Take a Bow: The son of a Presbyterian minister and a special education teacher, Plunkett discovered the stage in elementary school and got serious about performing at age 13 "because I was not as gifted at baseball as my friends," he jokes. When his high school's theater group attended the International Thespian Festival, Plunkett was recruited by the University of Evansville in Indiana and, after graduation, earned an M.F.A. from NYU's graduate acting program. And what did his father the clergyman have to say about Stephen's career choice? Amen! "My dad was actually a professional actor before he became a minister, so he totally understood," Plunkett says. "He even lived in New York for a while and tried to give it a go, but he got disenchanted and felt called to the ministry. My parents are really, really tickled to hear about everything I'm doing."

Shape-Shifting: Plunkett moves with ease through the various accents required in Gone Missing, a witty one-act musical meditation on lost things—keys, shoes, dolls, spouses and more—based on interviews with real people. He refined his portrayal of the Brooklyn cop by having coffee together: "I got to absorb his mannerisms and his particular way of telling a story. There's an incredible sense of optimism and hope pushing against the dark world he works in." In real life, Plunkett doesn't sound like a native of the Lone Star State. "I'm not sure when I lost my accent," he says. "In high school, people would tell me, 'You don't sound like a Texan.' I never really identified myself as a cowboy or a person who talked like one."

Well Suited: The youthful Gone Missing cast of three men and three women take the stage at the Barrow Street Theatre in androgynous suits and ties, their hair slicked back. "There's a Devo influence," Plunkett says, referring to the deadpan '70s punk group, "but it's also got a classic, urbane look that supports the different styles of the stories and songs." His musical number, "La Bodega," is a yearning ballad sung in Spanish "in the style of Julio Iglesias, with a matador feel," as he puts it. "You get the sense that it's talking about something absolutely epic and then you hear it [in English] and it's about losing his wallet and, more particularly, about the photo inside of the woman he loves." Though the stories being told are often of mundane objects, Plunkett notes, "Hearing how invested people get in their 'things' resonates with the audience. You start to realize that loss is natural, even though it can be difficult."

Civilian Life: Gone Missing is the latest project from the Obie-winning company The Civilians, which creates interview-based, collage-style theater pieces. "We like to think of our theater as investigative," says Plunkett, who traveled with the group to Colorado Springs last winter to gather material for This Beautiful City, its forthcoming piece on Evangelical Christians. After a presentation at Sundance's theater lab this summer, the show will premiere at the Studio Theatre in Washington, DC in 2008. "We're interested in the intersection of belief and public life, religion and politics, how they intermingle and how people live out their faith," he explains. "We're not trying to push any agenda."

Building a Career: In addition to his Civilians shows, Plunkett has helped develop The Horton Foote Project, a compilation of material from the 91-year-old playwright's nine-play Orphans' Home Cycle. "He's a great writer and a true gentleman," the young actor says of his fellow Texan. All in all, Plunkett is understandably satisfied with the state of his life and career a year after finishing graduate school. "I have a lot of good friends, and a lovely girlfriend," actress Sarah Schmitz. In classic struggling actor style, they met at a restaurant: "She was a maitre d' and I was a waiter—but not any longer, thankfully. We're very supportive of each other." As for New York? "I'd rather work my way up the ladder here doing plays I believe in than go to L.A. and work 15 days a year out of 365," Plunkett says. "I feel like this is my town."