As you’re about to leave your house for a work of theater, probably for the first time in months, actorDenmo易卜拉欣建议你把第二层。也许你already at the door, shoes on, keys in hand, only too eager to get going, but she seems to anticipate your every impulse to resist, at the exact moment your brain thinks it.

“Just in case?” she finally intones, in a musical Old World accent. Maybe you’ll be reminded of your grandmother. Ibrahim’s voice is between your ears, after all — the same place memory lives.

In “You Are Not Alone,” getting ready for the show is part of the show. The 20-minute piece, part storytelling podcast, part immersive theater, part audio tour, is meant to be listened to on your own, while you’re on a walk that starts at your front door, or just inside it.

Ibrahim collaborated with director and producer Tracy Cameron Francis and composer Ryan Anthony Francis (who are siblings) on the piece, after getting the idea for it on her own daily walks from her home in Mill Valley.

Before the coronavirus outbreak, Ibrahim wasn’t an avid walker. But then “there was nowhere to drive to, and there was no one to see,” she says. She walked first for exercise, “but then it was to clear my mind. Then the walk itself became a companion.” Even though she was technically by herself, she felt as if she wasn’t alone at all.

She wanted to give that feeling to others struggling with loneliness while sheltering in place. She also wanted to spur herself to take time to reimagine what theater can be in the coronavirus era.

“How is theater going to happen if we can’t gather in spaces?” she says. “Sometimes, when we’re really quick to make a Band-Aid or a fix, based on our circumstance, we miss out on the question we’re asking.” She and Tracy Cameron Francis, whom Ibrahim knew from theMiddle Eastern North African Theatre Makers Alliance, wanted to “break the whole thing and do something completely different.” But still, whatever art she made, she wanted it to be “still feeding why we do theater.”

At first, she and Francis joked, “What if you just went outside for a walk, and the walk was your stage?” Then they realized they actually liked the idea. After all, Ibrahim says, “the place that was most alive was right outside my door.”

In “You Are Not Alone,” as the mischievous yet gentle, familiar yet elusive character of Zaha, Ibrahim might tease you in one beat, only to speak in the next from unconditional love. She speaks almost as a bedtime storyteller. It’s a voice that could spin tales of faraway, imaginary worlds, but in fact she’s guiding you to see what’s strange and new in the views you’ve seen thousands of times.

There’s no rushing to a destination this time. You might find your standard pace slowing to a whimsical saunter. “Wow. You hadn’t noticed that before,” she says, and so suggestive is her voice that your eyes can’t help but seek out and land on some new detail: The string of decorations on a neighbor’s back porch, how a tree’s leaves cluster like a poodle’s pom-poms, the friendly cactus peeking above a windowsill.

Ryan Anthony Francis’ celestial underscore seems to propel you forward and make you float at the same time. Ibrahim’s voice lilts above it, in concert with it, a freewheeling melody.

Once in a while, Ibrahim’s Zaha alludes to how neighborhood walks have changed since the outbreak hit — wearing masks, neighbors veering course to give one another wide berths. Even here, though, she finds beauty and connection.

“She crossed the street so we could both take up our own space without worry,” Zaha says. “It’s interesting, you know, this new kind of acknowledgment: I see you. I make room for you. It’s sort of noble, no?

“Somehow that gesture, crossing the street was a window in – into her essence.” Encountering a stranger on a walk is “a momentary dance.”

But more often, the connections Ibrahim makes are timeless. So often in “You Are Not Alone,” her words seem to conjure something that actually appears — a bird, a leaf.

“One of the secret aims of this is that you’re really discovering magic in the world. Magic can be a moment of synchronicity,” she says, as when the storytelling and the music align with what you see. “That couldn’t have been planned. There’s a sense of hope that can come from that.”

“Suddenly the world aligns to the story because you’re looking for it. Then it gets deeper: What happens when we start looking for magic in the world, and we see it?”

“You Are Not Alone”:Conceived by Denmo Ibrahim and Tracy Cameron Francis. Written and performed by Denmo Ibrahim. Original musical score by Ryan Anthony Francis. Available for download through June 30. 20 minutes. $5-$15 suggested donation.https://bit.ly/yourenotalonewalk

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