In 1955, 67-year-old Emma Gatewood told her children she was going on a walk. She didn’t tell them she was setting out on the Appalachian Trail with the intention of hiking the entire 2,168 miles from Georgia to Maine.

In “Grandma Gatewood Took a Walk,” Catherine Bush’s stage version of a true story, Emma leaves behind her family in Ohio to begin a meandering path from Georgia through forests, over mountains and across rivers and creeks to the peak of Mount Katahdin at the trail’s end in Maine. Bush weaves in details about the woman’s childhood and an abusive marriage that produced 11 children, and we get to meet some of the kind people she met along the way.

It’s an inspiring story, sprinkled with tart humor, despair and redemption beautifully told by actress Jean Tafler, who stars in Florida Studio Theatre’s Stage III series production, staged by Nancy Rominger.

Tafler instantly makes you like this independent woman who says she felt love for the first time when she sees a story and photos about the trail in an old National Geographic magazine. Something struck her soul, and even though she had no experience as a hiker, she sets out anyway, seemingly unprepared with a few items of clothing and one rather thin-looking pair of sneakers. She appreciates the freedom of not knowing what she’ll experience. But she does realize she should have paid more attention to that magazine article to learn more about how to approach the trek, like noticing the white streaks painted on certain trees to mark the proper path.

Emma tells the story directly to the audience, admitting it won’t be a linear path, as she interrupts her journey with memories about her life.

Tafler is joined by Ryan G. Dunkin, who strums the guitar in the background and plays all the other characters, primarily her father and husband. Her father was Civil War hero who lost a leg and became a drunk, while making whiskey to support the family. He also plays her locally prominent husband, P.C. Gatewood, who is so sweet and flirtatious when they’re first getting to know one another, but turns violent as soon as she becomes pregnant with their first child. With just subtle shifts of his posture or tone of voice, he becomes a park ranger, Emma’s son, a variety of people who live near the trail who provide her food and shelter, and several reporters who make her famous by the time she reaches her goal.

She finds the reporters intrusive as they delay her journey for hours at a time asking the same questions. They all want to know why she’s doing it. “I thought it would be a lark,” she keeps telling them, but a more brutal truth is revealed along the way.

Tafler seems to carry us along with Emma. It can be momentarily jarring when the story flashes back to an event that happened decades earlier. But she keeps thing clear. At times you can almost see the lakes and mountain vistas and feel the fresh air she describes. Other moments are more disturbing as she and Dunkin re-enact angry battles with seemingly brutal force.

Bush’s script and Rominger’s direction find theatrical ways to take the audience on a hike. The stage is set with just a few wooden crates that become hills, mountains and shelters. Along the way, Tafler is open, frank, a bit crusty and utterly charming.

Like “Eisenhower: This Piece of Ground,” which opened the current Stage III season, “Grandma Gatewood” is softer and more gentle than the kinds of plays that were featured in past seasons. I miss some of the edge we’ve experienced, but Tafler makes this an endearing production.

‘Grandma Gatewood Took a Walk’ by Catherine Bush. Directed by Nancy Rominger. Presented by Florida Studio Theatre’s Stage III series, Bowne’s Lab, 1265 First St., Sarasota. Reviewed Feb. 6. Through March 8. Tickets are $29-$46. floridastudiotheatre.org; 941-366-9000.