Alicia is blonde, blue-eyed and Latina. Migdalia is pregnant, married to an African-American man and she too is Latina.

In her play "Yo Soy Latina!", writer-producer-director Linda Nieves-Powell looks at the many faces of Latina women and tells their stories in striking detail.

"Overcoming stereotypes means telling more than one story. Every community has a variety of stories to tell, not just one. It's important that all voices be heard," says Nieves-Powell, who will be presenting "Yo Soy Latina!" in the fourth-floor studio of Fulton Opera House Friday as part of the Fulton on the Edge series.

Nieves-Powell knows firsthand what it means to be Latina. Her parents are from Puerto Rico and her father was a building superintendent in New York City's stylish Upper East Side. She was always aware of the sharp contrast between herself and the kids in her neighborhood, who went to prep schools and summered in the Hamptons or abroad.

"I went to Catholic school," she says, adding that in the Hispanic community, she wasn't accepted because she didn't speak Spanish very well.

To be Latina and not speak Spanish. To be a blonde-haired and blue-eyed Latina. To be Latina and dark skinned. To be Latina and Irish, or Jewish, or any other combination of ancestry. That is the story of "Yo Soy Latina!", which means simply "I am Latina."

Today, Nieves-Powell is proud of her Latina ancestry. It has been a long journey to that place.

"The idea for this show was an organic process. I started writing around 1993 and for two years tried to learn as much as I could about theater," Nieves-Powell says.

The concept for the play -- which is based on six monologues from six different Latina women -- started with one monologue about a woman named Lissette Davila Rivera. Nieves-Powell wrote that monologue after a theater friend asked her to perform at a barbecue he was holding. It was the seed of "Yo Soy Latina!", even though Nieves-Powell chickened out about performing at the party.

"The character I wrote about was able to say for me everything I was feeling about being Latina. The frustrations, the joy, the pride and everything in between," Nieves-Powell says.

So she wrote about five more characters and gave Latina women a new voice.

Nieves-Powell didn't just dream up her six Latina characters. They are based on detailed research from interviewing 25 Latina women from the Northeast, who shared their varying life experiences. Those experiences evolved into the lives of six Latina women, who represent different aspects of being Latina.

"Yo Soy Latina!" features six monologues performed by actors Nicolle Guerra and Nadya Encarnacion with narration by Jenny Saldana. Saldana tells Nieves-Powell's story of being a Puerto Rican woman married to a black man, with an 11-year-old son, who has his own issues with where he fits in in society.

Encarnacion and Guerra each play three characters, with Encarnacion as the black Maria Elena, pregnant Migdalia who is married to an African-American and faces disapproval by her parents, and Soledad, the older Dominican woman who finally has the courage to leave her machista husband.

Guerra plays blonde-haired Alicia who doesn't speak Spanish, half-Cuban and half-Irish Louisa and Jennifer, the Chicana who wonders who she'll become now that her grandmother has died.

"After performing this show for over 10 years, I think the thing that works is seeing the many different types of Latinas there are," says Nieves-Powell, adding that the show has been presented at 400 U.S. colleges.

She often hears that all six Latinas represent one Latina.

"We are not what the media perceives us as, or even what our own community perceives us as. We are much more than that. Showing everything we are and everything we can be is what I hope people walk away with," Nieves-Powell says.

"Yo Soy Latina!"

Fri. at 9 p.m. $10

Fulton Theatre, 12 N. Prince St.

397-7425. www.fultontheatre.org