That Hike to Hart Lake
Follow
Johanna Beale
WEBSITE
SYNOPSIS
On a mountain peak in the Colorado Rockies, five college friends experience together the terror and beauty of the sublime. As eight decades pass and losses occur, those who remain reflect on Wordsworth’s concepts of nature and time as they confront the existential quality of memory, solitude, and the unknown country that awaits us all.
PLAYWRIGHT’S BIO
Johanna Beale Keller is an award-winning filmmaker, lyricist and playwright. In the past two years, her stage works have been produced in Brooklyn (Gallery Players), Houston (Theatre Southwest), Port Jefferson (Theatre Three), Lake Tahoe (Valhalla Tahoe), and elsewhere. She wrote and directed a rom-com that won a 2025 Mag Award at the Magnolia Independent Film Festival and Best Comedy Oniros Award. She has received writing awards from the South Carolina Theatre Association and the Atlanta Fringe Audio Festival. She is a prize-winning journalist (The New York Times, ASCAP Deems-Taylor Award, Front Page Award, Los Angeles Times, London Evening Standard) and classical music critic (Opera Magazine, Opera News). A nationally-known advocate of arts journalism, she is a four-time judge of the Pulitzer Prizes (in Criticism) and holds an emerita professorship at Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School, where she founded the Goldring Arts Journalism graduate program. She gardens in Syracuse, NY.
A BIT ABOUT THE PLAYWRIGHT
When did you start writing plays? If you had a moment where you realized you wanted to write, what was it?
When I retired from my university professorship in journalism in 2020, I intended to fly around the world reviewing operas, as I have done for many years—but the pandemic shut down all the opera houses! One morning, I sat down and wrote a play, and it was so awful that I signed up with the Dramatists Guild Institute to learn how to do it better. My playwriting debut was in December of 2022 with a comedy monologue titled “Why Did They Get Me a Roomba?: for Actor and Robo-Vacuum.” Since then, it has been a wild ride—I love being back in the theatre, which is where I was as a kid.
How did you come to write your OOB play? Was there a particular inspiration behind its creation? How has it developed?
When I was in college in Boulder, CO, one summer day, my boyfriend Alex and I took a long hike with two older friends, David and Mabel, up to Heart Lake in the high country. It was a remarkable hike—rigorous and with splendid, pristine views. That was decades ago, and David and Alex have since passed away. Two years ago, Mabel was cleaning out some files and found a cartoon of the four of us that I had drawn for her after our picnic at Heart Lake. When she sent it to me, the memory of that hike came flooding back along with the sad recognition that Mabel and I are the only ones left who remember that day. This play is dedicated to my friends: Alex Craig (1946–2020), S. David Smith (1920–2003), & Mabel D. Smith (1926– ).
What are five words that describe who you are as a playwright?
I write for the actors.
What/who are some of the major influences on your writing?
The practice and rigor of journalism. The musicality and rhythm of poetry.
What’s one fact someone would never guess about you?
I love going through the car wash and riding ferries, and I have no idea why they delight me so much. Is it the water?
What are some of your favorite plays?
Most of all, the works of Edward de Vere (if you know who I’m talking about, you’re my kind of person). Twelfth Night reminds us that we are all foolish—and forgiven.
Any new projects you’re working on or shameless plugs?
Right now I am working on writing and directing my first feature-length film—it’s a big undertaking, and I’m loving the challenge and the creative elbow-room that is possible in cinema.
Get Tickets