Guided by a heroic legacy of discovery and conquest, a modern-day explorer taught by his father to ignore boundaries makes his greatest discovery when he realizes that his boundless obsession threatens to destroy the two great loves of his life . . . the woman he adores and the earth itself.
This is a story of love in the anthropocene…
BEYOND THIS POINT is a love story told in geological time. A love story as the world is entering a new age of space exploration. A love story when women are breaking their long silence; Blacks, Indigenous, and people of color are rising up; and our warming planet is entering its 6th Great Extinction. In other words, a love story for today.
Driven by an irrepressible spirit of exploration, BEYOND THIS POINT follows two modern day explorers, Jules and Mel, once childhood friends, in their discovery of a new world closer than any of us imagined . . . the recovery of a world nearly lost.
As children, Jules and Mel ride their bikes through the streets of their suburban neighborhood like two great explorers. After rediscovering each other as grown ups, they travel to the far-flung corners of the world, falling more deeply in love with the wonders and cultures of the earth, and eventually with each other.
Along the way, caught up in the thrill of exploration and conquest, Jules carries his lifelong passion for amazement too far and faces the devastations brought upon the two things he loves most in the world: Mel...and the earth.
Told from the vantage of Jules' dead father, once an aerospace engineer during the space race of the 1960s, now a voice from the fossil record, we discover that perhaps the greatest peril to our dying planet is the failure of men to love well. It is a musical in search of a world beyond men’s appetite for conquest.
Filled with surprising humor and charm, and a breathtaking score, BEYOND THIS POINT is not just a love story for today . . . it’s a love story for tomorrow.
There are many ways to address the Global Climate Crisis: Replacing light bulbs, driving electric cars, capturing CO2, and planning colonies on Mars.
The Ward brothers . . . wrote a musical.
Drawing on 40 years as an award-winning theatrical writer, director, and performer, Drew Ward crafts the book and lyrics for Beyond This Point, balancing wit, humanity, and sharp lyricism, driving a story that spans modern love, global adventure, and deep historical resonance.
Keith Ward's score combines evocative cinematic soundscapes inspired by Hans Zimmer and Thomas Newman with the jazz influences of Dave Grusin and Vince Guaraldi, creating the musical backdrop for Beyond This Point’s adventure through time, space, and around the globe.
SONGSPACE SONGWRITER-PERFORMER POTLUCK | Organized by Anna K. Jacobs and Hunter Bird, Charissa Hogeland performs LAYER UPON LAYER in one of SongSpace’s artist potlucks at Open Jar Studios in NYC for emerging writers over 40.
TABLE READING 2 | New Threads Theatre hosts its second table reading of Beyond This Point featuring Mike Mulligan as Jules.
TABLE READING 1 | New Threads Theatre hosts Beyond This Point’s first table reading featuring Chad Kimball (Memphis) as Jules.
THEATRE NOW NEW YORK | Shortlisted for Musical Writers Lab interview with Tim Morrissey, Producing Artistic Director.
NEW THREADS THEATRE | Joined New Threads Theatre Writing Group
FIRST DEMOS PRODUCED | Charissa Hogeland records first demos of the soundtrack: Layer Upon Layer, Everything Belongs, A Map and My Stuff, and Beyond This Point.
READERS ROUNDTABLE | 16 strategically selected readers openly discuss the book & lyrics in a virtual gathering. The readers from across the country were comprised of women & men, young & old, Black, white, Indigenous, people of color, theater professionals, writers, and environmentalists (selected for their points of view, their critical thinking, expertise in their respective fields, and their candor).
LIBRETTO | Completed First Draft of Book and Lyrics.
DEVELOPING MUSICAL SCORE
DREW DEVELOPS CONCEPT and proposes to Keith for working together on a muscical.
Joining the increasingly global efforts to reimagine women and the earth, and to gain equity for Blacks, Indigenous, and people of color, BEYOND THIS POINT becomes their complement, offering a valuable dimension to these efforts by reimagining men, too.
“Drew and Keith Ward bring . . . a wisdom and curiosity toward the human experience that rivals any Tony caliber collaborators with whom I’ve been lucky enough to work.
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“Thanks for your important work. You’re doing essential, creative work!”
“GORGEOUS LANGUAGE…EXHILARATING SCORE!
BEYOND THIS POINT never buckles under the weight of its own significance thanks, in part, to Drew Ward’s gorgeous language, Keith Ward’s exhilarating score, and a magical visual experience that carries us around the world and also deep into the heart of all things, across immeasurable spans of geological time without ever losing the intimacy that spans the pulse of a single heartbeat.
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“HUMOR, SCIENCE, ANCIENT WISDOM, AND ROMANCE…
Using humor, science, ancient wisdom, and romance, BEYOND THIS PONT addresses our thrilling, but troubling, history of exploration and expansion through Jules’s failures and discoveries. While the show liberates men from their cultural captivity to notions of conquest and the Doctrine of Discovery, it delivers us all into an even greater adventure...a humble and faithful marriage to life in this world.
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Filled with surprising humor and charm, BEYOND THIS POINT is a love story set on a collision course with the Global Climate crisis, colonization, and the #MeToo Movement, confronting the slow violence suffered by women, Indigenous, and people of color, and the rest of the earth at the hands of men . . . ultimately offering an answer that might save us all.