They’re two of Auburn’s most recognizable alumni, and they actually were classmates at the university, but it took an Academy Award nominee to get Thom Gossom and Michael O’Neill together years after they graduated.

“Alfre Woodard introduced us,” says Gossom. “She had a 40^th birthday party for her husband at Santa Monica airport. She said, ‘I have somebody from Alabama I’d like you to meet.’ He was familiar, and he said the same thing. Turns out we were living maybe five minutes from each other.”

O’Neill remembered that Gossom had played football for Auburn, but that was about it.

“We started talking that night and have been talking ever since,” O’Neill says.

TV viewers remember Michael O’Neill from “The West Wing,” “Grey’s Anatomy” and many other roles.

That was 25 years ago, and the two went on to successful acting careers, among other things. This week, they take to the stage at Auburn’s Gogue Performing Arts Center to co-star in “Alabama Boys,” an original play they wrote together. They’ll perform it Oct. 26 and 27.

Neither is a stranger to the stage.

Gossom graduated from Auburn in 1975 with a degree in speech communication, becoming the first Black athlete to graduate from Auburn. He’s forged a career as a writer and consultant, and he and his wife, Joyce, have run the communications firm Best Gurl for about three decades. Along the way, he’s also acted in a number of stage productions, in movies such as “Fight Club” and “Miss Ever’s Boys,” and on TV series, such as “NYPD Blue,” “Boston Legal” and “In the Heat of the Night.”

O’Neill graduated with an economics degree in 1974 but soon after began acting under the mentorship of Will Geer (Grandpa on “The Waltons”) and his daughter, Ellen. His many credits include movies such as “Dallas Buyers Club” and “Seabiscuit” and TV series like “Grey’s Anatomy,” “Scandal,” “The West Wing” and “Council of Dads.”

“We worked a lot of the same shows, but never together,” says Gossom, who lives in Fort Walton, Florida. “I was going back and forth from Atlanta to Los Angeles back then, and Michael was off somewhere else. Once we got to know each other, it all worked out.”

Auburn fundraising events, and former Auburn President Jay Gogue, led to “Alabama Boys.”

“We were masters of ceremonies at a number of these events,” O’Neill says. “Dr. Gogue may have been the first to say, ‘We have this theater we’re building, and y’all ought to do something.’”

O’Neill, who starred in a stage production of “Proof” a decade ago but has acted mostly on screen, did have to think about it.

“I had some trepidation,” he says. “If it had been anybody but Thom, I don’t think I would have done it.”

But the two went to work on “Alabama Boys,” an autobiographical work based on their similar career trajectories but very different life stories.

“There are some novelties in my story, but there are things in Thom’s story that really need to be told,” O’Neill says. “Both of us grew up in the middle of the civil rights movement, but Thom’s experience with that was much different than my experience with that. … We trust one another with our stories.”

Thom Gossom’s TV roles include memorable turns on “NYPD Blue” and “In the Heat of the Night.”

The two have worked for two-and-a-half years on the script by phone, mostly, meeting a couple of times at the Gogue to work on the piece. “I was still living in Alabama at the time,” says O’Neill, who has moved to Los Angeles with his wife. “A couple of times, I drove down to Fort Walton, or Thom was working in Birmingham, and we would get together.”

Both O’Neill and Gossom have high praise for the Gogue and its crew.

“I think it’s the most beautiful theater I’ve ever set foot in,” O’Neill says. “It’s 1,200 seats, and it feels like a living room. Acoustically, it’s brilliant. Technically, it’s so sound.”

Right now, next week’s performances of “Alabama Boys” are the only ones planned, but that could change.

“It depends on how well it goes and what’s happening next in our lives,” Gossom says. “We’re not spring chickens. We’ll see.”

For details about the upcoming performances and tickets, click here.