Betty Hart is one third of Local’s triumvirate Co-Artistic Director team, along with Nick Chase and Founding Artistic Director Pesha Rudnick. This season, all three Co-Artistic Directors are playing key roles in each production and Hart kicked things off as the director of September’s tribute to Phish and to devotion, You Enjoy Myself by Topher Payne. She also directed a workshop reading of A Case for Black Girls Setting Central Park on Fire, by Kori Alston, a play that intertwined gospel music, running, and a rottweiler to illuminate a coming of age story as specific as it is universal. This winter, she returns to the Dairy as the solo performer in acts of faith, by David Yee, a character she first brought to life at the Aurora Fox under the direction of Rudnick.
Ask Betty Hart what she’s most looking forward to in reviving the role of Faith and she’ll tell you, “stepping into some characters who feel familiar but completely different because I’m no longer the person who once stepped into those shoes.”
In February, Rudnick and Hart will revive their actor/director collaboration to bring acts of faith to audiences in a limited run at the Dairy Center for the Arts, and Hart says that a lot has changed since that first production. Audiences who saw the production in Denver may recognize some parts of the show. Costume designer Holly-Kai Hurd is returning to this production and Local has rented costumes and prop pieces from the Aurora Fox - but a lot of the production team is new to this production including sound, projection, scenic, and lights, not to mention a new addition in Movement Consultant Christina McCarthy, a multi-disciplinary artist and lecturer from University of California Santa Barbara who joined the team to support the theater magic, as Rudnick describes it.
And Hart herself has changed. In summer 2023, she traveled with a group from the Urban Leadership Foundation of Colorado to Ghana and Egypt and the experience had a profound impact, not only on her personally, but in her understanding of the role of Faith. “Playing an African character, never having been to Africa, you’re playing the ‘other’ in a way. Faith was just walking around, surrounded by people who look like her, she’s the majority – there’s a comfort in looking around and seeing yourself everywhere – that I’ll incorporate into this Faith. That wasn’t something I knew when I first created the character,” recounted Hart. “Though Zambia is a different country, there are commonalities that I now know - I saw little girls going to and from school, wearing their school uniforms. There’s meaning now in a way that I didn’t have in the first production…this world is real for me now instead of imagined.”
Hard, third from left, with the Urban Leadership Foundation of Colorado in Ghana, summer 2023.
Another thing that’s changed is her belief in herself. In her characteristically vulnerable style, Hart shares, “I didn’t expect the fear that I encountered in the midst of rehearsals that I hadn’t experienced since early in my career, the ‘what if’s’ were overwhelming, I genuinely didn’t know if I could do it.” But support came in from all directions, costume designer Holly-Kai Hurd texted a photo to Hart during rehearsals with the note, “I’m not sure if you know how beautiful you are in this role” and audiences surprised her with their silence and their tears, “they were feeling what I was feeling, we were one,” said Hart. “Maybe every performer wants to do a solo performance, maybe they don’t. I wanted to do it but I didn’t know if I could do it…I think people say I’m fearless, but I have a new level of fearlessness now. I walk more boldly because I’ve inhabited this character and faced my and her fears.”
It’s no surprise that it was the support of others that illuminated her own capabilities. Hart says that the thread throughout all her work is community, the necessity and the power of creating community. Betty Hart wears a lot of hats, as actor, director, Co-Artistic Director, President of Colorado Theatre Guild and as a part of a 9 person national team at Kaiser Permanente that delivers content about resilience, using theater to prompt real conversations that create heart-centered healing approaches to burnout in the workplace.
And as important as community is, something that Hart knows would surprise a lot of people. “I think people would be surprised at how much I value and enjoy silence and solitude.” She also loves finding new shows on Netflix and she’s learning to play golf. By the spring, maybe you can catch her taking on 9 holes!
