A Moment with Joy

FINDING OUR WAY through the storm of life is not always funny, but humor sure beats the alternative.

When College of Charleston Theatre Professor, Joy Vandervort-Cobb, was urged to write and perform a one-woman show, she resisted. “I was terrified!” says the effervescent diva (she would agree with the title). “I knew that the stories I told about my life entertain people who loved me, but what about people who didn’t know me?”

After taking a leap of faith with the project, Joy soon realized that courage was indeed a necessity. The show came together, but not without blood, sweat, tears, and therapy—as she explained between rehearsals for Moments of Joy— which, in its second run at Piccolo Spoleto, has people laughing and wanting more.

“Then there was the fact that they wanted me to sing,” she adds in disbelief. “So this was particularly scary.” Yes, she had a lot of experience singing in the shower, but no formal training. “Even when my daughter, Jamie, was a baby, she would put her little hand over my mouth when I sang a lullaby!”

But sometimes the thing we fear most is what we should do.

Moments of Joy weaves together stories of parenting, marriage, friendship, and broken dreams. With close friendships and a little religion, Joy sings, cries, and hoots through a two-hour show “which is sometimes longer if I’m really having fun!” Some have described it as catharsis for her mid-life crisis, but she is quick to clarify: “It was not my midlife crisis, but my husband’s!”

Joy Vandervort-Cobb

Audiences have an easy time relating to this woman who expertly creates a world where men and women may hear their own stories. “The more specific you make it, the more universal it becomes,” she says.

Her intelligent comedy and unstoppable energy create a self portrait of sorrow, anger, chaos, and ultimately… JOY!

(Moments of Joy is produced by Maida Libkin and William Schlitt, creators of the local musical theatre group, The Company Company.)

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