Liz Mikel is the sole actor on stage during a Dallas production of “Where We Stand,” but at the beginning of every performance she doesn’t know how the play will end.
That’s because it’s up to the audience.
“The story comes alive because the community is my scene partner, and I rely on the community for a lot of interaction, clapping, singing along, chanting along — and at the end — ultimately, they decide my fate,” Mikel said.
Aside from the community, Mikel performs each of the nine roles in the play.
It sounds daunting, but Mikel, who has had roles on Broadway, the TV series “Friday Night Lights” and films like “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” and “Miss Juneteenth” is up for the task.
With just one word and a change in her posture, she makes the transformation from one character to the next look effortless.
“My director and assistant director, they were very instrumental in helping me to curate these different personalities because I have to see them,” Mikel said. “I have to know who these people are and see them in my head in order to be able to embody them, to make them come to life.”
The show’s director, Akin Babatunde is a longtime mentor and collaborator of Mikel.
“I wouldn't have a career at Dallas Theater Center had it not been for Akin Babatunde. He brought me there as a young actor, and he continues to invest energy and his love and guidance into helping me grow as an artist,” Mikel said. “He did it for me back in the ‘90s and he's doing it right now.”
The story centers on a character simply named “Man.” He’s down on his luck, stationed on the outskirts of town and barely garners a second thought from his neighbors.
Then, a stranger comes to Man and makes him an offer. He’ll help Man turn things around and share his prosperity with the community, if the town is rebuilt in the stranger’s name.
It’s an offer Man makes on behalf of his neighbors, but what will they think when they learn the details of his bargain? The audience is given two rocks at the beginning of the show, one black the other white, to cast their vote at the end.
The audience participation starts long before they’re asked to decide Man’s fate. In the beginning of the show, Mikel starts singing and before long, the whole audience has joined in.
“I'm meeting them with an open heart, to an open-heart, so that's what propels the community into joining along,” she said. “Once that hand is extended and that nod of, ‘Yes, this is what we're doing,’ is extended to one person, it just spreads. … Once that invitation is extended, it is received and it’s just infectious and I'm grateful for that.”
The show, which is a co-production between Dallas Theater Center and Stage West Theatre, runs about 70 minutes without an intermission.
“There's not a lot of times that a piece like this presents itself to an actor and I'm grateful to be able to take this journey and this ride,” Mikel said.
She hopes others will join her.
“Where We Stand” runs through March 22 at Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys campus, 3400 Blackburn St., Dallas.
