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KIM HINES: This wasn't a play that I just sat down and wrote scene by scene by scene. These pieces were all individual pieces that I had been working on, off and on. The oldest, Mavis, I've been working on for the last six years.

I really didn't know what I was going to do with her. I just kept adding things. And I put her away on the shelf and work on other projects and then bring her back down again.

And I had done a performance for the Walker in celebration of gay and lesbian pride. And it was called Dyke night. And it was all female performers. And I did an eight-minute monologue. I didn't even have a title for it.

It was the character Portia, who's a lesbian who sells cosmetics. And John Killacky, who's director of performing arts at the Walker, saw the piece and he said, I want you to call my secretary tomorrow morning. I want to set up an appointment to see you before the end of the week.

And I had no idea what he had in mind. And the next thing I knew, I was signing contracts for out there. And so that's how all of that came about. And he said, he wanted a full evening with some of my other characters.

SPEAKER: Your work is issue-oriented. And in the past, it has been a bit controversial in the view of some. What issues are you raising in this show?

KIM HINES: Oh wow, there's a lot. With Beverly, I touch on the abortion issue. I touch on the issue of child abuse, not only physically but emotionally and verbally. And it's also the whole issue of turning your destiny over to someone else, letting them make decisions for you. And then you're stuck with it.

Christie, I bring up the issues of the effects of the Civil Rights movement on Black kids. Because I've really not read anything, any studies done on Black kids who grew up during the Civil Rights movement. And to think that as a kid, you're sitting there watching national television and your people are being attacked by dogs and mace and fire hoses. And you've got white folks coming on TV, very bold with ax handles and saying, we don't like your kind. We don't want your kind. And we're going to eradicate you. That's a real traumatic thing to be going through.

With Mavis, it's the whole thing about survival. Because her husband batters her, one of her husbands. And it's also-- there's something about her age and how because she sings too loud in the church choir, they have asked her to leave. And what that does to her spirit.

SPEAKER: Could you give us a sample of some of the characters? Start with Mavis, if you could. This is from, Who Was I The Last Time I Saw You in Mavis is-- what? She's in her 80s, would you say?

KIM HINES: Yes. Yes. Mavis grew up in Minnesota. And it was during a time when there weren't that many Black people. Mavis has been married twice. Her first husband dies. I don't want to give that away. But he dies a violent death.

And her second husband is the husband that batters her and runs around and he's never home and what have you. And he dies too. And she realizes after that, that she doesn't have to live like that. And so she chooses not to be married. And she chooses to raise her kids on her own and to hook up into a community of other women that are single and have children. It's like her support system.

SPEAKER: She's networking.

KIM HINES: Yes, very much so. And still does that clear up through her 80s.

SPEAKER: OK, let's hear from her, if we could.

KIM HINES: In the summer of 1933, Joe helped with the town of the roads just South of the cities. That summer was real hard on Joe. He didn't get along with some of them white boys that come down to sign up for work.

Well, you know how them folks do, especially they menfolk. They tease at you and tease at you and pull at you and poke at you and call your names till you got to pray to the Lord to give you strength to help you keep your hands to yourself, just so you don't kill somebody. And the minute you raise your voice or act with any kind of dignity, they want to beat you up and throw you in jail.

And many times, our people get killed over their mess. Well, there was these two white boys that kept on Joe. They make Joe so mad that he come home at night and want to punch holes in the walls.

I told Joe that he should quit. I said, now, if it's a issue of money, I can always find me some extra work because white folks is always looking for colored women to do their work for them. But you know, men are hard-headed. They were hard-headed back then and they hard-headed now.

See, they don't hear nothing, unless they feel like hearing it. And Joe wouldn't hear me. So I just waited for the call, for me to come and get him.

SPEAKER: There's another part of Mavis in your characterization. She's dreaming of red shoes. And I'm doing a duet with Ella Fitzgerald. A man, I think, took the money, one of her husbands that was supposed to go for the shoes. Mavis has trouble with the men in her life. Is that a social comment in general about the Black family experience and Black women's experience?

KIM HINES: I think to a certain extent, Yes. And I think it has to do with the fact that Black women refuse to admit that we have problems with sexism within our community. They keep making up excuses. I mean, this is how sons are raised.

There's all these allowances made. It's like the sons are loved, but the daughters are raised. You know what I'm saying. The daughters are always raised to be responsible and to be there and to hold down the fort.

But the men are allowed or the boys are allowed to just run wild. And so there's this weird sexism that goes on. And it's no wonder that Black women have problems in regards to Black men because there's this whole sexism thing that they refuse to really, really deal with.

And then when they start to deal with it, it's so late. And many Black women just give up. They would rather live alone than to live with a partner because it's just too difficult.

SPEAKER: OK, let's go now to the other edge of the generation spectrum. Christie is a 10-year-old girl. It's 1965. Civil Rights movement is perhaps at its peak. Tell us a little bit about Christie.

KIM HINES: Oh, Christie. She's living during a real turbulent time in history. And it's not only the turbulence around her, but there's also all this stuff going on inside of her because she's going through puberty. And she doesn't know-- she doesn't understand it all, just like she doesn't understand everything that's going on around her.

And so what she tries to do is because she's a kid, she's looking for the fun and magical element of what's going on. Like, for her, when Raymond Love, a Black man that disappears from the neighborhood, when that story hits the papers, her mind just goes off about, oh, wow, well, I wonder where he is? And let's look for him.

And she's all caught up in that. And it's like all the adults around her are hush-hush because they realize that this man's been murdered. And he's been murdered because he's a Black man. And there's danger. These are very dangerous times. And she's trying to understand what that's about.

SPEAKER: Can we hear from Christie?

KIM HINES: Oh, sure. 1965, a lot of strange things have been happening this year. And they've all been happening in three's. Raymond Love's disappearance was first. And then my cousin Karen and I, we found Robert Barry's big old dog dead in Karen's front yard, stone cold dead. And no one knew why or how.

And then the Jones family's house got robbed. And we had never had a robbery on our block before. They took a whole bunch of stuff. And then they shot Mr. Jones in the head. But he didn't die.

But there's not a whole lot you can do when something like that happens. Well, sometimes, us kids in the neighborhood, we fight over who's going to push Mr. Jones in his wheelchair for his walk because whoever does gets $0.50 from Mrs. Jones because she can't do it. I think because she feels ashamed. She doesn't like people staring at Mr Jones.

Well, he does look funny with that steel plate in his head and that knitted cap he wears even when it's hot outside. But us kids understand. Anyways, I was talking about three's. They're numbers. I wasn't ever into numbers until I heard sister Ray talking about him in church.

She was sewing on a quilt with other ladies and I was part of a youth group that was serving refreshments. Sister Ray's group was sewing on the freedom quilt, trying to finish it up for Richard Allen day. And that's when I heard her talking about numbers.

Three is the most magical number there is. It's all through the Bible. Most numbers in the good book are divisible by three. And you all know that bad things, bad times, and bad luck come in three's. I know because I had me three husbands.

But there's good things in three's too, like the father, son, and the Holy Spirit. There's three stages of life, girl, mother, old, wise woman. Most children of today know all they're ever going to learn by the time they're three.

Of course, there's three beans salads, three supremes, and three gates to the city. Hallelujah! Yes, yes, there's magic in them numbers. Magic all around you, if only you just open up your eyes.

Well, I started taking in what sister Ray was saying and I started opening up my eyes. And all of a sudden, I couldn't stop thinking about the number three. And that's when I noticed that all these things were happening. And I figured three had a whole lot to do with it.

I mean, well, first of all, it's 1965, which is 21 when you add all those numbers together. And then you divide that by three, you get seven. And then you add 7 plus 3 and you get 10, which is exactly the age I am in 1965.

SPEAKER: A number of emotions when I listened to that. There's the vulnerability of her to the various forces. The church lady says something and she picks up on it. There is the enthusiasm and the belief and the hope in what she does. But then there's the violence around her. How do your audiences react?

KIM HINES: Oh gosh, a lot of people like Christie. I think a lot of baby boomers relate to her probably more than any other age group. When young people hear her, they're caught up in the exuberance and everything. And they want to know about that time in history.

SPEAKER: Do you get a racially mixed audience?

KIM HINES: Yes, very much so.

SPEAKER: Is there any difference in the response from the whites and the Blacks in the audience?

KIM HINES: Oh, yeah. a lot of whites say, gosh, I just was never aware that kind of stuff happened. I mean, they understand it from a history book standpoint, but they don't get it on a day-to-day basis at all, like the whole thing about people disappearing. An older white gentleman said to me, I learned a lot. He says, I was in college at that time. I wasn't really thinking about what other people were going through at that-- during that time in history.

SPEAKER: Do you think you then successfully are able to communicate that experience through the eyes of your different characters to audiences who did not experience it?

KIM HINES: I think so. I mean, I feel that I do just from the feedback that I get from people. And it's very emotional too.

SPEAKER: Let's talk about some of the production elements. You're on the stage, you're all by yourself, do you-- what use do you make of lighting? Do you make any use of props? Do you change costumes?

KIM HINES: The costumes, a pair of earrings here, change of shoes there, a scarf, a cane, that's about it. And I have two chairs and a bench. And that's it.

SPEAKER: I'm told that the one-person show was the most demanding and the most rewarding. Do you enjoy it?

KIM HINES: I enjoy it once I get out there and I make a connection with the audience. That is just-- it is such a wonderful feeling because it's not about age or race or gender, it's about everybody being there and giving me energy and my taking it in and giving back to them. And it's just a wonderful feeling.

But I'll tell you, this has got to be one of the most challenging things of my career. I'm 36. And I'll tell you, when this show is over, at the end of the show, I feel like I'm 80. I really do.

I don't know how Lily Tomlin does it or some of these people who have done these one-person shows. It is very, very exhausting physically and emotionally because I go through just tons of different emotions in that two hours. And I am so drained. I hardly know what my name is at the end of the show.