TEEVEE:

Click below for a segment on Big Blue Door that includes interviews of me aired in 2018:

ARTICLES:

Here’s a C-ville article by Raennah Lorne from the fall of 2016 about the improv program here and my wife Jen.

Four years later, their roles and their community continue to evolve. They have partnered with other organizations, such as the IRC, to help reach their mission. And their graduates have gone on to create their own groups under the Big Blue Door umbrella…

BAR PLAYS:

Some reviews at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe. Bite-Size Plays featured some of my bar plays at the 2014 Edinburgh Fringe. The production was called Big Bite-Size Breakfast and featured three rotating ‘menus’ with one of Joel’s plays (“Tragic Hero”) in Menu #2, and two (“Answer Man & Big Fish Little Fish”) in Menu #3.

From The Flaneur:

The Answer Man is a great way to start your day at the Edinburgh Fringe…

William Knowelden stars as the ukulele strumming Answer Man, who appears behind a bar and offers Annie Jackson’s depressed Denise the answers to life’s big, and not so big questions. Written by Joel Jones it allows Knowleden to appear omniscient and his jovial know-all has to be one of the most-entertaining characters to breakfast with.

From the Skinny:

Big Fish, Little Fish by Joel Jones is a brilliant parody of old-school film noir full of witty puns and a saxophonist who only speaks through saxophone riffs. The femme-fatale is funny as she swishes and pouts her way through the purposefully clichéd lines while the stereotypical shady character with the internal monologue – that is not very internal – is brilliantly cast.

From the British Theatre Guide:

Answer Man by Joel Jones

What should be a witty light comedy becomes far more…

Big Fish Little Fish by Joel Jones

The final drama is a spoof on those hard boiled movies based on private detective novels by the likes of Dashiell Hammett…

Thanks to the efforts of director Nick Brice, the script and performers combine to provide a superb ending to the 2014 series.

SOLO SHOW:

Life Insurance began as a single character monologue for Charlottesville’s Barhoppers in 2003. It was performed by James Scales and directed by Betsy Tucker. James and Betsy reprised it for Best of Barhoppers in 2008.

In 2010 I added two other characters, wove the monologs together, and performed the piece under the direction of Matt B Weir for a run at Magnet Theater. Jen and I, working with director Boomie Pedersen and Nelson County’s wonderful Hamner Theater took it to the Capital Fringe in Washington, DC, and New York City Fringe Festival. Here are some of the reivews:

From Mariya Danilenko at Maryland Theatre Guide:

Joel Jones captivates and entertains in his one-man show Life Insurance… This short, witty and smart drama draws out laughter every twenty seconds, while delving deeply into the minds and lives of these characters…

From Julia Katz at DC Theatre Scene:

Joel Jones, however, walks the fine line of morbid comedy with delightful ease in his solo performance, Life Insurance… Jones, even throughout the serious motifs of the piece, gave straight-faced remarks that had the tendency to garner wild laughter from the audience. His droll comic delivery was a hit, but don’t let that undersell you on Jones’s contemplative themes.

From Ian Buckwalter in the City Paper:

[O]ne week into this year’s Fringe, it’s my favorite thing that I’ve seen so far… Jones manages to create three distinct and remarkably whole characters… He has a great gift for naturally including unusual details that seem like throwaway character notes, but that then become vital parts of the story later on.

From Heather Lee Rogers at nytheatre.com:

All three characters are performed with detailed precision in physicality and vocal choices. It is a treat to see Jones switch between them quickly and cleanly while endowing each one with their own fully invested emotional journey. The writing is also very good—peppered with humor, heart and profound observations on life and death.

From Aline Reynolds for the Villager, Chelsea Now, and Downtown Express:

Jones masterfully switches between the three characters every few minutes, managing to create a steady rhythm of narration as each of these stories become intertwined… As a solo performer portraying more than one character, Jones succeeds where so many have failed — because he’s especially adept at using his vocal dexterity to bring out John’s diffidence, Wade’s effervescence and Steven’s constant apprehension.

A beautiful article by Nancy Colasurdo, a columnist for Fox Business.

Overall it spoke of the prisons we create for ourselves, the small ways we can make our current lot better and how good fortune or disaster can be around the next bend.

Finally, one of my favorite lines from any review ever, is by this blogger:

This is a show that seemed to end with a whimper, but it’s the whimper of a mutt that followed me onto the subway, into my home, and perhaps even delayed my sleep.