Joi Danielle Price is a multifaceted theater artist who uses storytelling to center Black female self-determination and grounded truth in theatrical worlds both familiar and fantastical.
A native of Flint, Michigan, Joi studied both journalism and musical theatre.
One degree led her to roles in Broadway productions and national tours of Mamma Mia!, the show that set the scene for many of her deepest friendships, and Ragtime: The Musical, where she felt privileged every night to tell a story that featured the Black experience in America at the turn of the century.
The other degree supported her life-long interest in shedding light on the stories of Black women in our history who were influential and inspiring without widespread acknowledgement of their accomplishments. Notably, another favorite performance of hers was in the New York Innovative Theatre Award winning production of Raisin, a story written by the first Black female American playwright to have her work produced on Broadway.
The story of Ballet Russe De Monte Carlo ballerina Raven Wilkinson moved her so deeply she reached out to the dancer. She her story into a full-length dance-driven play. As a playwright for Mile Square Theatre’s 7th Inning Stretch, she contributed a short play celebrating Black women in professional baseball pitched professionally in the early 1950’s. A lifelong consumer of fantasy and sci-fi stories, Joi is currently developing a musical based on a short story called “Valedictorian” by celebrated author N. K. Jemisin, which centers on a gifted and self-assured Black heroine navigating a peculiar high school environment.
Price’s career demonstrates her dedication to amplifying underrepresented voices and fostering artistic collaboration in the theater community. Joi has a passion for supporting the next generation of theatre artists by teaching acting for musical theatre and schools and universities that have included Northeastern University (formerly Marymount Manhattan College), Molloy University/CAP21 and the Professional Performing Arts School in n New York City, and Interlochen Arts Camp in northern Michigan.
My Story
I grew up in a household of two Black women, my mother and me. That was not only the kind of home base that the word home evokes, but also the neutral and assumed center of my world. My world was enveloped in the spirit of achievement and possibility left to us by my father, a WWII Tuskegee Airman and a lawyer turned judge who passed away when I was small. My mother, who put herself through college in the 1950s and stayed active in the Black community of Flint, MI, put these ideals into action in front of me daily.
My days were also filled with ballet classes and constant music, my mom at the piano and me on my violin — that is, when I wasn’t watching the 80s and early 90s Star Trek or Star Wars. Whether in school or at home, I was always singing, prompting one classmate to call me the human jukebox — and not necessarily in a kind way. My career on Broadway and in national tours did a lot to erase any bitterness about that.
When I found my way to my high school theatre department, I felt there was a place for me. And though my first foray into musical theatre, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella, was thwarted by a stomach virus, I redeemed myself with what I believed at the time to be a stunning portrayal of Baroness Elsa Schraeder in The Sound of Music.
Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but wonder: did my race have anything to do with not getting the title role, or the role of Maria? Our theatre department’s policy of color-blind casting was in effect, and I was very inexperienced, so that may simply have been the reason. The actors who played those roles were also absolutely wonderful performers. I was happy with my casting, but the question lingered.
The happiness that musical theatre continued to give me led to my study of Musical Theatre at the University of Michigan, after two years of study in journalism — I simply couldn’t leave performing behind. And I, the human jukebox, found a place in the college a cappella scene, living my Pitch Perfect dreams.
I was quite satisfied being an actor, though the love of the written word that intrigued me in journalism persisted. It was reignited by my discovery of Raven Wilkinson’s story, buried deep within a documentary called Ballets Russes. The resonance I felt with her journey to find strength in her identity as a dancer in a world that questioned it emboldened me. I reached out to her and was rewarded with rich conversations that I have since turned into a script.
My work will always flow like a musical and incorporate the things I love — dance, fantasy, sci-fi, and maybe more that I have yet to explore. Whatever the subject, a Black female voice will anchor it, and the form it takes will spring from the realities and authentic dramatic moments, while challenging our protagonists to show off her resilience in a world that seeks to diminish her.
