For decades, North Texas audiences have watched Liz Mikel perform in all sorts of musicals, dramas and comedies. For Where We Stand, a play by Donnetta Lavinia Grays playing at Bryant Hall on the Kalita Humphreys campus Feb. 25 – March 22, Mikel needs the audience to participate in the show.
A member of Dallas Theater Center’s Brierley Resident Acting Company, she has made the Tony Award-winning theater her professional home for more than 30 years. She has created unforgettable characters at several North Texas theaters, including Theatre Three, Dallas Children’s Theater, Jubilee Theater and Stage West. She has been on Broadway and Off-Broadway too, in 1776, Fruit Trilogy and Lysistrata Jones. Mikel is not a stranger to the big screen and small screen, appearing in Miss Juneteenth, Get On Up, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty and NBC’s Friday Night Lights.
Where We Stand, the third production of Dallas Theater Center’s 2025-2026 season, is a different kind of acting assignment for Mikel. In this immersive morality tale, she is the lone storyteller, weaving together the story of a neighbor who has made a dangerous bargain. Now the community – the audience – comes together in a town hall atmosphere to decide the fate of this neighbor. The show demands that the audience consider the theater a shared civic space where they will determine the moral direction of the community.
Directed by Akin Babatunde, Dallas Theater Center co-produced this show with Stage West in Fort Worth. Mikel performed the show at Stage West earlier this year, and she reflects on the audience’s role and reaction to the show, the intimacy of Bryant Hall, and the communal power of theater.
Na’Tori HarrisNa’Tori Harris
Liz Mikel performed Where We Stand earlier this year at Stage West, Dallas Theater Center’s co-producer of this show.
NBC DFW: The show is described as a one-person show, but it really isn’t. What is the audience’s role? And why is it important?
Liz Mikel (LM): In Where We Stand, the audience is the community. It is a community gathering. They are my scene partner. The audience is being asked to take the journey as a participant in this theatrical piece. They’re not here to simply watch but to be involved because ultimately, they decide my outcome.
NBC DFW: Why is Bryant Hall the right venue for this show?
LM: Bryant Hall is the perfect space for this “gathering” because of the uniqueness of this show. It’s not your typical theater offering where you sit and watch. It is intimate and you will be connected to each person in the space as we take this journey together.
NBC DFW: You have been on Broadway, and you have worked in the Dallas theater community for a long time, creating a myriad of characters. How is this role different? Does it demand something different from you as an actor?
LM: Where We Stand is a completely different experience for me because I play ALL of the characters! I’ve played multiple characters in plays before, but this is the first time I’ve played them alone in one piece of theater. It’s very challenging but extremely rewarding when the audience sees and feels each character and becomes invested in the outcome.
NBC DFW: You performed this show at Stage West recently. What did you learn about the community through this show?
LM: In the Stage West run, I was deeply moved by the willingness of the community to engage and the outpouring of positive responses to what they experienced.
NBC DFW: Why is theater a powerful place to bring together a community?
LM: There’s a line in the show that says, “Friendship is community, the folks that stay around.” I believe theater deepens our understanding of not only ourselves, but our fellow human beings. It is a chance for us to reflect and grow together. Nothing brings us closer than taking a journey together through the gift of storytelling that we call theatre.
Learn more: Dallas Theater Center