West Philly in New York

NEW YORK - Colman Domingo was around 35 when his second growth spurt began. He'd already weathered the awkward years of buck teeth and ballet lessons. Now the actor had to figure out a way to say goodbye to his parents and his childhood home at 52d and Chancellor Streets in West Philly.

But rather than letting go, Domingo decided to archive his memories. The result is A Boy and His Soul, a one-man show - equal parts song, dance and storytelling - that captures the energy of the neighborhood, and the pervasiveness of R&B and soul in the 1970s and '80s. It recently extended its run Off-Broadway at the Vineyard Theatre to Nov. 1.

"I was trying to marry my childhood coming of age and my new coming of age that I'm having now," said Domingo, 39 and an Obie-winning veteran of the musical Passing Strange. "I feel like I've truly come into my adulthood."

During his 90 minutes of reminiscing, DJ-ing and channeling his mother, stepfather, siblings, and others, he deftly flips through forgotten records in dusty crates, punctuating vignettes (summer nights in the backyard, violin lessons, and inner conflicts about his sexuality) with songs by his favorite artists - Marvin Gaye, Teddy Pendergrass, Gladys Knight and the Pips, James Brown, Aretha Franklin.

A Boy and His Soul includes 11 characters, modeled on Domingo's family. "I find most of my joy doing character work," he explains. As an actor, he's listened closely to his brother's laugh, scrutinized his sister's strut. He hopes he's representing them truthfully in a piece of theater in which "90 percent of the stories are true" and the rest represent dramatic license.

Those who would know say he has. "He hit everyone dead-on," niece Nashonda Clark says. "Even my friends say, 'That is exactly like how your mom and uncle act.' " Critics have called his performance "blazingly charismatic," "irresistible" and "astonishing."

While the play begins and ends in the not-so-distant past, as his parents prepare to sell the house, most of it is set decades ago, at a summer barbecue or a transformative 1978 Earth, Wind & Fire concert in Fairmount Park, or outside the strip club where he came out to his brother. Domingo remembers a West Philadelphia that was genuine and warm, and was mindful of how he portrayed his hometown. "I wanted it to not seem too slick," he said.

Onstage, random paraphernalia, including a child's Easy-Bake Oven, an out-of-commission bicycle, and a tacky white-plastic Christmas tree, make for a cluttered-basement set.

Before each performance, he has his stage managers give him a read on the audience so he can gauge how to approach members, how to engage them, figure out whether they'll be receptive to the audience sing-along of the Stylistics' "Betcha By Golly Wow."

"I think my play is constructed as a two-hander - it is between myself and the audience, truly," he says.

After graduating from Temple with a journalism degree, Domingo left for California, where he did some film and TV work, but concentrated on theater. (He was in Berkeley Rep's original production of Passing Strange, which later moved to Off-Broadway, then Broadway.)

It was in San Francisco, four years ago, that A Boy and His Soul got its start at a small theater called Thick Description, going on to become the biggest draw in the venue's 20-year history.

Tony Kelly, Thick Description's artistic director and producer, said he had been struck by Domingo's performance in the company's 1997 production of Oliver Mayer's Blade to the Heat, as a character who had to lip-sync to Jackie Wilson and James Brown. In 2005, Kelly decided to produce A Boy and His Soul, and he's been the show's director ever since.

When Domingo's parents passed away during the time between the San Francisco inception and the New York version, "my suggestion was to have him not go there," Kelly says. "But I was such a fool, because he does such a beautiful job with it."

The Vineyard's artistic director, Douglas Aibel, became familiar with Domingo's acting in Passing Strange, and approached him to discuss producing A Boy and His Soul. "I had a sense that he was a special artist beyond interpreting other people's work," Aibel says.

Domingo acknowledges that he's come a long way since, as a nearly broke Temple grad, he made the jump to West Coast living. But he still yearns for a homecoming of sorts.

"It's always been my hope that, after a New York run of this show, my next city is Philadelphia," he says. "I've never performed in Philadelphia in my entire 17 years as a performer, and I would love to." He rattles off a list of theatrical organizations - the Philadelphia Theatre Company, Pig Iron, the Arden, the Wilma - where he would be happy to see his work produced.

And "of course," he adds, while sitting in a Times Square cafe a heartbeat from Broadway, "I have hopes that this could play on a big street with a big name."

"I just think that people are ready, on a commercial level, for stories like this. I would really like for something like this to exist."