Mark Povinelli was sipping coffee at a Starbucks near Lincoln Center recently when a young boy hawking chocolate for his school approached. “Candy, sir?” he said, less intent on moving merchandise than gaping at the 3-foot-9 performer, the star of Martha Clarke’s new piece of dance theater, “Belle Epoque.”

“No, thanks,” said Mr. Povinelli, smiling with bemused hazel eyes. The staring ‘tween remained rooted to the floor. Mr. Povinelli reiterated: “Not today.”

Mr.Povinelli, 33, is not unused to such encounters. “Because of my size and my difference, I’m kind of on stage all the time,” said the actor, who is deft at expressing the particular way his size causes him to view the world. “I’m a celebrity without being known. When I’m out in public, people are noticing me. I can’t walk through life being anonymous by any means.”

This, he says, is part of what turned him to acting in the first place. “Early on, somewhat unconsciously, I decided I wanted to take control of when people looked at me or laughed at me, when people were scared by me or charmed by me. It felt empowering to be on stage and say, ‘Okay, you have to sit there and watch me, and I’m in control.’ That felt very good.”

Mr. Povinelli and other actors of his stature do seem to be getting noticed a lot more lately. He netted the kind of notices performers dream of for his Torvald in director Lee Breuer’s 2003 deconstruction of Ibsen’s “A Doll’s House,” which played at St. Ann’s Warehouse in Brooklyn. And since October 28, he has worn the beard and derby of Henri de Tolouse-Lautrec in “Belle Epoque,” Martha Clarke’s choreographic distillation of the French painter’s art and life, which opens November 21.

Mr. Povinelli won both roles after Peter Dinklage proved unavailable. Mr. Dinklage is the actor who won kudos this fall for his Richard III at the Public Theater, and who forever changed the fortunes of “height-challenged” thespians when he headlined the critically acclaimed independent film “The Station Agent.”

Both Mr. Povinelli and Ms. Clarke think opportunities have improved for him since the success of “The Station Agent.” (Tellingly, Mr. Dinklage was unavailable to comment for this article due to a pressing film commitment.) Mr. Povinelli, however – who has supported himself as an actor for eight years and knows well the vicissitudes of the business – views the shift somewhat cynically.

“I think it’s going to stay better as long as people find that there is a financial benefit in it,” he commented. “People finally saw that a Little Person could carry a film. But if ‘The Station Agent’ came out and seven people saw it, that wouldn’t be the case. It’s the same story with any minority – with blacks, with gays, with women to some extent. You go through this arc where you’re a stereotype; and then you get into this PC, sentimental genre where you’re the one who’s lamented; and then people find out there are a lot of interesting things about you.”

Still, he confessed that Mr. Dinklage’s achievement has personal significance for him as an actor. “The first time I worked with Peter, we did a workshop of ‘A Doll’s House,'” he said. “Watching him on stage, I learned so much. I’d never seen someone of our stature command the stage so much and really own his space and just indulge in his own self-worth. I had always felt that inside, but to see the permission to really be able to do that. It’s so rare to see someone my own size on stage – I don’t get to watch myself. It was really a release for me.”

Far from resenting filling Mr. Dinklage’s shoes in two consecutive New York stage projects, Mr. Povinelli revels in his colleague’s crowded schedule. “I told Peter, ‘If you go out to Hollywood and get famous, that’s just fine with me,'” he said. “I’ll take all the work you would have gotten here.”

Nonetheless, he’s aware that in hiring him casting agents were, to a certain extent, objectifying him and Mr. Dinklage; that is, simply trying to replace one Little Person with another.

“This is going to sound awfully complimentary to both of us, but it’s as if you took a part that was originally intended for Sean Penn, and you put Matthew Broderick in the role,” reasoned Mr. Povinelli. “It’s going to be a vastly different show and a vastly different performance. I think the trap people fall into is ‘Well, they’re both under 5 feet tall. We can’t get this guy, so we’ll get that guy.’ So they think of the physicality before they think of the type of actor. We’re very different people. And we’re very different actors with very different skills.”

Ms. Clarke, for her part, appreciates the separate skills of both men. “Peter was more introverted,” said the director. “He’s done a lot of movie work and he’s kind of cinematic in the way he developed the role [of Tolouse-Lautrec]. He was very instinctive and extremely subtle. Mark, because he’s done less film, takes incredibly bold strokes. He’s brought a lot of comedy to the role.”

Given their strengths, Mr. Povinelli thinks he may have a project that can bring him and Mr. Dinklage together. “I’d love to do Sam Shepard’s ‘True West,'” he said, outlining the mythic tale of an uptight Hollywood screenwriter and his violent, outlaw brother. “I told Peter. He was intrigued.”