Blue Mountain Rose a novel in five acts

Richard James Aloysius Keane is a lion of the theater, a visionary director and producer, the recipient of a National Medal of Arts for his contributions to American drama...and a tired man. His outdoor Elizabethan theatre, the Mountain Rose, lures acclaimed actors and astute theatergoers from around the world. But after 45 years of service in all weathers, this “ Wooden O” is showing its age. Keene has begun to wonder whether it’ s time for them both to take a final bow. Mountain Rose production manager Kate Moraila isn’ t ready to say goodbye yet to this dream of a great theatre in a small town. She hopes their newest actor, Peter Dunmore, will throw himself into the fight to save the Rose. But can this fiery young “ cross between Sir John Gielgud and Ryan Gosling” attract a new generation of fans to the footlights? Or will his hidden past ring down the final curtain on the fabled Mountain Rose?

Julie C. Hammonds fell in love with Shakespeare’ s plays during a high school trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival and has nurtured that love all her life. She studied the plays in school, stage-managed "The Winter’ s Tale" and "Much Ado About Nothing," and helped to create the Flagstaff Shakespeare Festival. Her quest to complete the canon as an audience member has taken her from Juneau, Alaska, to the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon. She has seven plays to go. This is her first novel.