[upbeat music playing] - It's the middle of the night and the sky is glowing, like mad radioactive red.

And if you squint, and if you look up high enough, you could see me.

[upbeat music playing] My name is Sergio Mauritz Ang.

I am an actor, a theater artist, and a graduate student.

[upbeat music playing] I'm in Chapel Hill for graduate school at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill.

I've been a New Yorker for about 20 years now and this is my first time going ever to Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

[upbeat music playing] [choral music playing] Saturday nights look a little bit more laid back unless there's something going on for Sunday.

Usually rehearsal or a workshop, and we'll do some prep work for that.

Otherwise it's a lot of cooking or frozen pizza, if I get lazy.

And usually Netflix to catch up on TV that I've missed.

[upbeat music playing] Being a theater artist, we rely so much on the in-person human contact and all of a sudden this pandemic hit and were denied of all of that.

One thing about theater artists is that we're, we're very resilient and so we make something out of nothing.

We make everything out of nothing.

And so that's one thing that COVID has done is that you know, we turn our bedrooms into a black box theater.

We turn our closets into a magical space.

where we can create work and be imaginative.

[knocking] I have seen two such sights, by sea and by land.

But I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky: betwixt the firmament and it you cannot thrust a bodkin's point.

I was born and raised in the Philippines and I came to the States with my family when I was about 11 years old.

[funky music playing] I feel like I'm an amalgamation of all these cultures coming together.

I feel like that's what growing up in the United States is like and I feel like that's what really makes me unique and all the intersectionalities coming together and meeting and jelling well together.

I feel like growing up as an undocumented immigrant has really defined the person who I've become and because we needed to be patient and resilient and we needed to have hope, you know, more than anything in that life was going to get better for us.

I feel like DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, really was a turning point.

And so when that finally came around it was a rush of excitement, but also like, Oh, like like things can happen and that like we can pursue the dream that we really wanted for ourselves, not just their family but what we had hoped for to be and become.

Being an artist of color in this industry is crucial at this point, because we are the voices now and the future of American theater.

And I love us.

I'm always advocating for us, you know not just in the people that I work with, but I also the pieces that I choose when I'm auditioning.

How can I put all of myself into my work?

And that includes all of my queerness, all of my New York City-ness, all of my immigrant-ness.

Whatever that thing that makes me special is is always at the forefront of my work.

And that's why it's so important.

- PBS American Portrait is a platform where people can go to in order to share their experiences.

- I took a risk when - when I was 18 and joining the Marine Corps - and it's been an amazing journey ever since - This project can help bring us together - To understand what it really means to be an American.

- So join in, go to pbs.org/americanportrait - Join us and be a part of history.