Joy Mitchell
About
Joy’s directing career was a natural progression from a prolific and successful acting career. As a young actor she shared the stage with many national and international celebrities such as Googie Withers, John McCallum, Frank Thring, Reg Livermore, Mary Hardy, Patricia Kennedy and Bryan Brown.
She went on to enjoy a distinguished acting career playing leading roles at Melbourne’s Princess Theatre, Comedy Theatre, The Malthouse, Melbourne Theatre Company and appearing in television shows such as Homicide, Matlock Police, The Sullivans, Cop Shop, Prisoner, Blue Heelers, Neighbours and Snowy River.
In 1989 she was selected to participate in the post graduate director’s course at Drama Studio London. Subsequently she was invited to direct Jean Genet’s The Maids at the Edinburgh Festival a production which scored rave reviews and was transferred to The Rose Theatre London. Other UK credits include Tom Cone’s Cubistique for London’s Theatre Technic and Strindberg’s The Stronger for The Latchmere.
Since returning to Melbourne she has directed plays at The Malthouse, The George Fairfax Studio at the Victorian Arts Centre, La Mama and Chapel Off Chapel. These assignments included Portrait of Vincent, The Carer featuring Bud Tingwell, Joanna Murray-Smith’s Flame and Ron Elisha’s Controlled Crying for the Seymour Centre Sydney. Steven Snell’s play Keeper for the Castlemaine State Festival and Rebecca Lister’s play If I Should Die Before I Wake at Chapel off Chapel, and subsequent regional tour. She also directed Wilfred’s/Lowdown’s Adam Zwar in Kissing for Australia for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival.
Joy was recently seen performing in the ABC’s Lowdown series.
