Joy Nesbitt is a director, writer, and musician originally from Dallas, Texas.
Joy is inspired by stories of Black Femininity and postcolonial imagination. She has been named on The Irish Times and Sunday Times’ lists of “Ones to Watch in 2024.”
She is currently directing My Sister in this House at the Lir Academy and will soon direct the world première of Boyfriends by Ultan Pringle, at Project Arts Centre.
In 2022, Joy attended the Theatre Directing MFA at The Lir National Academy of Dramatic Arts. She is a 2021 recipient of the Louis Sudler Prize in the Arts for the sum of her artistic activities at Harvard University. Joy is a Director SEED for Rough Magic Theatre Company, a Writer under the mentorship of Enda Walsh for Theatre For One with Landmark Productions, and a member of the 2023 cohort of the Rachel Baptiste Programme at Smock Alley Theatre.
Joy’s directing credits include Spear by CN Smith (2024, Corrib Theatre), Listen, A Black Woman is Speaking by Marlow Wyatt (2023, Project Arts Centre), The King of All Birds by Martha Knight (2023, Project Arts Centre), endings. by Fionntán Larney (2023, Project Arts Centre and Smock Alley Theatre), Appropriate by Branden Jacobs-Jenkins (2022, The Lir Academy), Reflections by Joy Nesbitt and Pedro Pacheco (2022, The Lir Academy), Canonical by Scout Black (2022, Smock Alley Theatre), Reasons to be Pretty by Neil LaBute (2021, Harvard University); R+J: An Ultramodern Fantasia by William Shakespeare (2020, Harvard Univeristy); God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza (2020, Harvard University); Dreamgirls by Henry Krieger and Tom Eyen (2020, American Repertory Theatre); Mamma Mia (2019, American Repertory Theatre); and A Very Potter Musical (2018, American Repertory Theatre).
She has assisted on productions by Ronan Phelan, Dan Colley and Tom Creed.
Joy has also written three full plays: Good, Julius Caesar Variety Show, and Meditations on Somebodiness.