Sonja Parks is a one-woman community in 'Seedfolks'

As acclaimed Twin Cities actress Sonja Parks walks on the stage of her latest production, she asks a manager to bring up the stage lights and dim the house.

Then she tells the audience for "Seedfolks" that she is about to tell them a story about a place that may remind them of where they live.

"This neighborhood is in Cleveland," Parks says. "What happens in this neighborhood, this neighborhood right here, is happening right now."

Immediately, the Children's Theatre in Minneapolis fills with music mixed with the roar of construction work and blaring car horns — sound that is perfect for a gritty story of a struggling community of people who live around a garbage-strewn lot in Cleveland.

With that, Parks begins an extraordinary theatrical odyssey in which she transforms herself over and over, playing all 14 characters in the play. But there are no costume changes. Instead, Parks uses speech, posture and gestures to convincingly migrate between characters — from an 8-year-old Vietnamese girl, to a geriatric Eastern European busybody.

In the play, which opens Tuesday, Parks also plays a street-wise but lovesick bodybuilder, a world-weary school janitor from Kentucky and myriad of others.

"It's kind of an actor's dream, and an actor's nightmare at the same time," Parks said with a laugh.

"Seedfolks" is based on a Newbery Medal-winning novel by Paul Fleischman. Each chapter is told from the viewpoint of a different person living near a vacant lot in Cleveland.

"And it starts, as most kind of big concepts does, with a very small thing," Parks said. "A little girl just wanting to feel connection with her father."

The girl is Kim, who never knew her dad. He was a farmer who died before she was born. She decides to honor his memory by planting beans in the only soil she can find — the garbage lot near her building. She digs the frozen ground with the only tool she can find, a spoon.

"One hole. Two. Three!" she grunts.

Parks suddenly becomes Anna, an old lady across the street always on the lookout for mischief, who spies the girl. Anna decides the little girl must be burying drugs or a gun. She goes out to dig up the hidden trove, but is horrified when she realizes she is destroying a tiny garden. Anna calls a friend to save the plants, setting off a chain of events which gradually engages the whole community.

Parks is extraordinary in the play, slipping between different ages, body types, ethnicities, and genders seemingly with ease. She and director C. Peter Brosius have been molding the play on-and-off for three years.

Brosius said the secret lies in the background work they have done with the characters.

"Each of these characters is like their own three-act play," he said during a break in rehearsals. "Every one is a complete and complicated human being."

Even days before the show opens, Brosius and Parks kept honing individual characters. Almost every single movement Parks makes has been choreographed and rehearsed, over and over.

"If you don't do that kind of distilled detailed specificity, then what you get is hodge-podge," Parks said.

With that in mind, Brosius said they have focused particularly on the transitions between characters.

"So the transitions are sudden, sharp, surprising and complete," he said.

Brosius said when he first decided to adapt "Seedfolks," he immediately thought of Parks.

For her, working with a director she trusts has allowed them both to dig deeper into the story.

It's not easy though. Parks pours herself into the gritty realities of "Seedfolks," telling the characters' stories of loss and hardship. Carrying that weight is emotionally exhausting.

"And so our beautiful stage manager Miss Jenny Friend kind of steps in periodically and says 'OK, that's enough! No, she has to sit down now,'" Parks said.

She quickly adds while she is working hard, so is everyone in the production.

Brosius said young audiences can easily relate to what's happening on stage.

"They live in a very high-stakes, very complicated emotional world, filled with joy and filled with difficulty and frustration," Brosius said. "And these characters are all going through something."

Parks and Brosius clearly believe they have something special in "Seedfolks."

"The gorgeousness that one actor can embody the world," Brosius said. "You know, we all have the world inside of us, you know, if you open up to it. And you get to watch that with this extraordinary artist."

Even without seeing the show audiences seem to believe it too. Tickets are in such demand the Children's Theatre has already added an extra week of "Seedfolks" performances.