Set in 1952 at the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in Woodland Hills, California, the play begins as Hattie is dying of breast cancer. Hallucinating in her hospital room, Hattie believes Walter White has come to reconcile their differences, and in order to prove to him that she was indeed a credit to her race, she reminds him of the major events of her life and her many “firsts,” large and small. Throughout Hattie’s roller coaster ride, she sings and dances, cracks jokes, and recites the lines that made her famous, illuminating a life so often misunderstood.