Dallas actress and storyteller Hailee Dyer is reimagining what contemporary theater can look like — and where it can live.
Her one-woman-centered production I Am Home returns this winter for a one-night performance at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. The show, produced by Dyer’s Applewood Productions, expands on its 2024 debut at the South Dallas Cultural Center’s theater. This time, it’s being staged inside a museum gallery.
For Dyer, that shift is intentional. It’s story for and about modern creatives
“We want art and theater, specifically, and film as well, to live in another dimension of things, so we can innovate this space and bring a new light to it,” she said. “Just expanding it to Fort Worth and putting it in a museum, I think, just brings a sense of innovation that we've been looking to do.”
I Am Home follows Lisa, a young therapist wrestling with the pressure to choose between creative expression and a more secure, conventional career. For Dyer, who wrote and stars in the piece, the tension is personal.
She studied to become a therapist before founding Applewood in 2021, and found herself surrounded by other emerging artists grappling with similar questions.
“I wanted to create something that could express what the generation is feeling,” she said. “We were all given a gift, and that gift needs and deserves a place to shine, whether that's in family, whether that's in your gifting in your job or whether that's in something artistic, there's a pathway and a place for what's inside of you to come out into the world.
Applewood Productions began as a film company, then expanded to include theater as Dyer met more storytellers who didn’t feel at home in traditional creative institutions. The company now positions itself as a bridge for independent writers, filmmakers and performers in North Texas. The company has produced four theater productions.
Although I Am Home is written as a one-woman play, Dyer struggled to write the script as a purely solo piece so she added a “podcast character” to help move the story forward. That role evolved into a live musical performance by Dallas artist Joshua “Dandii Sun” Njobe.
“I think everybody hears that and they think musical,” she said. “Although it is music and storytelling on stage, it's kind of a bridgeway where we can talk about how many different mediums you can use to tell one story.”
The show also carries the artistic touch of Marta Torres, a stage director and museum curator who saw I Am Home during its original run and later invited Applewood to bring the production to the Modern after joining the museum's staff. This marks the company’s first expansion outside Dallas, and its first time staging a performance inside a museum.
“She called me directly and said, 'My platform grew, so yours did as well. I'd love for more people to see this show.’ ” Dyer said. “It just speaks to the nature and the impact that the show actually has in real people's lives.”
Dyer says audiences should expect a more refined and visually different experience in the museum setting, including new staging and lighting.
The December performance will also serve as a launchpoint for the next phase of Applewood Productions: adapting theater pieces into films. A short film version of I Am Home will premiere at the Modern on January 8.
Details:
Dec. 9 at the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth. 3200 Darnell St, Fort Worth. Tickets start at $35
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