Embodying All of It

Don’t Miss Doris Hines, the show that kicked off the 2025-26 season at the Minnesota History Theatre, introduced audiences to that incredible, historical Twin Cities performer.

It also re-introduced the Twin Cities to Comfort Dolo ’14.

Dolo had been in and around the Twin Cities theater scene before she landed the prominent leading role. Her senior honors thesis (with fellow Gustavus Theatre major Rob Ward ’14), was in the Minnesota Fringe Festival. She’d also acted in productions for Penumbra, Climb, Illusion, and Guthrie theaters. But playing Doris Hines? That was something different, and special. “The show is a look into her life,” Dolo says. “The character I embodied is based on the person she really was.”

She was a force. Born in the 1920s, Hines was raised in foster homes. She married early and had six kids. Though her four-octave voice was meant to be shared, she didn’t start singing professionally until age 34. She moved to Minnesota on Christmas Eve, 1963, after a singing gig in Minneapolis.

From there, Hines shared stages with Duke Ellington, Ella Fitzgerald, Harry Belafonte, and more. She sang in all the Twin Cities nightspots, plus throughout the U.S., Australia, Japan, and more of East Asia. As a working mother, she also earned an undergraduate degree in African American Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Dolo received her undergraduate degree at Gustavus, choosing the college after glimpsing Old Main on the way to visit Minnesota State University, Mankato from her hometown of Fridley. “I thought the campus was so beautiful,” she says. She had a list of possible majors, including Chemistry and Biology, but it was Beginning Acting that changed everything. “I thought you can’t major in theatre because I didn’t know there were career paths with the major.” She double majored in Communication Studies. “The classes balanced really well,” she says.

She also went all in on student leadership positions. Diversity Leadership Council, Habitat for Humanity, Big Partner/Little Partner, Guild of St. Lucia, St. Lucia Choir. A curious, omnivorous learner, she took something from every course. Among her favorites: “The J-Term class Reading the Bible with Homer Simpson. And Elementary Statistics. And Beginning Tennis and Beginning Badminton. I loved all of them!”

Now, as a professional actor, it’s become clear that the wide range of courses was more than just a good time. It was a formidable foundation for her craft. “I was able to take so many different kinds classes. Now I feel comfortable in almost every setting. I can meet people and connect at so many levels because my world view is wide.” Connection is what makes her acting work, well, work. “Empathy is such a big thing,” she says.

She brought that empathy to Doris Hines. “Initially, it was very intimidating,” Dolo says. Hines’s youngest child, Gary Hines, who directs the Grammy Award-winning music ensemble Sounds of Blackness, came to multiple performances and events. “I was like, ‘Hi, I’m playing your mom,’” Dolo says. “I wanted to do Doris Hines justice. I want to portray her authenticity and what made her who she was.” Her ambition, her work ethic, “how she never let there be excuses. She knew what she wanted in life and she went for it,” Dolo says. “She had six children and she’d still go sing at jazz bars at night.”

Hines auditioned for the Arthur Godfrey Talent Show 18 times and was rejected 17 of them. (She won the 18th.) Dolo completed an MFA in acting at Case Western Reserve University/Cleveland Play House in Ohio. As she was about to showcase audition for New York City agents, then move to Atlanta—a major center for African American performance art—the pandemic hit. It was a major blow for a young artist working in a medium that relies on in-person audiences. She came back to Minnesota. And, like Hines, bit by bit, with dedication and determination, Dolo is carving a path.

Its first steps were in that Beginning Acting course. Her professor encouraged her to audition for a Gustavus production. She did, then got the part, then declared a Theatre major, then, as she says, “the rest is history.”