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Five current (and former) Dallas actors are having a New York moment right now

Deirdre O'Connell and Candy Buckley in "Becky Nurse of Salem" by playwright Sarah Ruhl, currently at Lincoln Center
Kyle Froman
Deirdre O'Connell and Candy Buckley in "Becky Nurse of Salem" by playwright Sarah Ruhl, currently at Lincoln Center

For North Texans, a bunch of familiar faces are appearing on Manhattan stages at the moment. With New York theaters returning full-force after Covid, five performers from Dallas are currently acting there: on Broadway, off-Broadway or soon-to-be-on-Broadway.

Here's the rundown:

Candy Buckley — She's been in HBO's "Treme," she's appeared at the Old Globe and the Guthrie Theater and on Broadway in "Scandalous" and the long-running revival of "Cabaret." From the late '70s through the early '90s, Candy Buckley was a leading member of the acting company at the Dallas Theater Center, especially under artistic director Adrian Hall, when she appeared in such landmark shows as "All the King's Men." Right now, she's playing an eccentric witch in "Becky Nurse of Salem" by Pulitzer-finalist playwright Sarah Ruhl ("In the Next Room") at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater through Dec. 31. And it's not even Buckley's first appearance at Lincoln Center. In 2006, she acted in the world premiere of "Bernarda Alba" there.

Liz Mikel — A current member of the Dallas Theater Center's acting company, Liz Mikel is best known for her appearances in musicals but also in "Sweat," "Inherit the Wind" and the premiere of "Give It Up!" (aka "Lysistrata Jones"), which went off-Broadway. And yes, you may have seen her in the TV series, "Friday Night Lights." She's currently appearing as John Hancock in "1776," the Roundabout Theatre's gender-non-conforming revival of the Tony Award-winning musical about the drafting of the Declaration of Independence. It's currently at the American Airlines Centeruntil Jan. 8 — then it'll go on tour.

Kurt Rhoads and Nance Williamson in "Off Peak" at 59E59 Theatre in New York.
Emmanuel Faure
Kurt Rhoads and Nance Williamson in "Off Peak" at 59E59 Theatre in New York.

Nance Williamson and Kurt Rhoads — The married couple have become stalwarts of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival in New York, after having met as company members in a 1984 production of "As You Like It" at the Dallas Theater Center. They've both returned to North Texas in such productions as "Henry IV," "Steel Magnolias" and "Dividing the Estate." The two are currently playing a couple who meet on a commuter train in "Off Peak," presented by the Hudson Stage Company off-Broadway at 59E59 Theatrethrough Dec. 23.

Billy Eugene Jones — OK, so Billy Eugene Jones is not onstage in Manhattan at this moment. But he was recently — and will soon be — performing there quite a bit. Jones began his career in the '80s in Dallas, and returned several times, including playing a Martin Luther King-like character in "The Good Negro," which premiered at the Dallas Theater Center in 2008.

Billy Eugene Jones who plays the dead father and Marcel Spears, who plays "Juicy," the Hamlet-like character in "Fat Ham."
Joan Marcus
Billy Eugene Jones as the dead father's ghost and Marcel Spears as "Juicy," the Hamlet-like character in "Fat Ham."

This year in New York, Jones was most recently in "Where the Mountain Meets the Sea" at New York Center Stage (just ended Nov. 27). In Feb-March, he was in Aleisha Harris' "On Sugarland" at the New York Theatre Workshop. And he performed in the Public Theater's production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Fat Ham" — a gay, Black, Southern barbecued "Hamlet" — which is now scheduled to open March 21 on Broadway at the American Airlines Theater. Coincidentally enough, in 2003, Jones appeared in "Hamlet" at the Dallas Theater Center, directed by Richard Hamburger.

Jerome Weeks is the Art&Seek producer-reporter for KERA. A professional critic for more than two decades, he was the book columnist for The Dallas Morning News for ten years and the paper’s theater critic for ten years before that. His writing has appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, American Theatre and Men’s Vogue magazines.