This is Joy Kilpatrick’s first time back on stage after taking a nine year hiatus. She left a thriving professional acting career in 2006 when she decided to become a mother. Joy cites Motherhood as her most loving, most demanding, most rewarding role she has ever experienced. She has played many Mothers on stage, but nothing compares to being one!
At the age of 6, Joy was scouted on a local tennis court in Miami, Florida to be in a commercial that aired on the Dionne Warwick Special. Upon her return from studying overseas at The National Theatre in London, Joy’s career blossomed, earning her membership in the Screen Actors Guild and Equity Actors Association by the time she was 22. In TV and film, she co-starred opposite Burt Reynolds in B.L. Stryker, Safe House with Patrick Stewart, Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David, and Star Trek: Voyager. On stage, she has played Olivia in Twelfth Night (Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival), Mrs. Kendal in The Elephant Man (Burt Reynolds Jupiter Theatre), and Helena Landless in The Mystery of Edwin Droid (Actors Playhouse) for which she was the Carbonell Winner for Best Supporting Actress.
(Joy and Patrick Stewart on the set of Safe House)
Currently, Joy teaches yoga and drama to pre-school and elementary children in Durango. Sharing her passion for the performing arts over the past three years has re-kindled her love of theatre and sparked her desire to be on stage again. She is thrilled that her return to the stage is at the Durango Arts Center, a place she feels is vital to the arts in our community. Joy says, “I remember as a child seeing a children’s production of The Wizard of Oz. That experience of sitting in the audience and viscerally taking in all the sights and sounds gifted me years and years of many wonderful experiences and memories as a performer. That’s what draws me to the DAC. I feel the DAC gifts our community an opportunity to experience and support the arts. Like traveling the ‘yellow brick road’, the arts can ignite our imaginations and provide limitless possibilities of expression. To have a gathering place for such vision is important to our community, especially our youth.”
(Theatre camp at the Durango Arts Center. Yes, that’s Dewa up front and center! )
Joy has always been attracted to Sam Shepard’s dynamic work. She feels like he is a contemporary Tennessee Williams. “Time is the longest distance between two places.” That basically summaries why she is so excited to be a part of this production because when she was studying acting at the University of Miami’s B.F.A. Conservatory Program, she did a scene from Fool for Love. The time is now that she gets to be in a full production.
BreathWorks With Joy 