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Where Is Joy?
SHOW DETAILS:
Thursday 30 October – Sunday 9 November 2025
preview: Thursday 30 October
opening night: Friday 31 October
duration: 70 minutes. We are unable to admit latecomers to this performance, please arrive promptly.
times:
Tuesday to Saturday 7:30pm
Sunday 5pm
ticket price: $35 – $49
bookings: 03 9662 9966
Click HERE to read the program
Auslan interpreted performance: Wednesday 5 November, 7:30pm.
Auslan (Australian Sign Language) is used by the Australian Deaf community. For seats with clear sightlines to the interpreter, please see the box office team on arrival.
Warning: This production contains references to mental illness (including suicidal ideation), cancer and chronic illness, epilepsy, abortion, family neglect and emotional abuse, mental-health stigma, parental abandonment, death and grief. Recommended 14+. It also contains occasional coarse language, sexual references, haze/smoke effects and full blackout.
WHERE IS JOY? contains themes that some audience members may find distressing. If this work raises issues for you, support is available: Lifeline: 13 11 44; Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636; Griefline: 1300 845 745; Cancer Council Helpline: 13 11 20. 13YARN: 13 92 76; Q-Life: 1800 184 527; MSI Australia: 1300 003 707; Family Relationship Advice Line: 1800 050 321.
Created and performed by Emma Louise Pursey and directed by the incomparable Susie Dee, WHERE IS JOY? is a powerful new solo theatre work that draws Joy Hester from the margins and places her centre stage. A first-wave Melbourne modernist, Hester was the only major woman artist of the original Heide Circle—unapologetically bold and critically dismissed, she worked primarily in ink, not oils, and left behind an extraordinary oeuvre.
At 27, Emma Louise Pursey was told she had Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Just like Joy. Both experienced chronic illness and profound loss—Hester until her death at 40 in 1960, Pursey to this day. Hester died. Pursey lived—and made a play.
Two decades in the making, this deeply personal work blends arresting physicality with direct storytelling and multidisciplinary design to reclaim Hester’s legacy with passion, compassion and life-affirming humour.
Featuring an extraordinary, all-women creative team, the production is endorsed by Heide MoMA, CMAG, Janine Burke, and the late Mirka Mora and Barbara Blackman AO.
This project is supported by the City of Melbourne Arts Grants, The Robert Salzer Foundation, and through the Australian Cultural Fund Boost program. It was originally supported by the Queensland Government through Arts Queensland and developed with the assistance of Metro Arts.
Additional support has been generously provided by Heide Museum of Modern Art, Canberra Museum and Gallery, St Kilda Historical Society, Wayward Woman Giving Fund, One Star Lounge & Gallery, The Lennox, Anne Runhardt, and 16th Street Actors Studio.
Click HERE to read the program.
Photo by Amber Schmidt
Actor, Writer & Producer: Emma Louise Pursey
Director: Susie Dee
Composer & Visual Content Designer: Sarah-Mary Chadwick
Lighting Designer: Amelia Lever-Davidson
Set, Prop & Costume Design Consultant: Lindy Macauley
Dramaturgical Support: Iain Sinclair, Ian Brown, Maryanne Lynch, Julia Grace
Original Creative Development Co-Writer (2004-2005): Amy Hyslop
Original Creative Development Dramaturg (2005): Saffron Benner
Co-Producer & Production Manager: Cherian Jacob Payyapali and Nidhi Isaac, Cicero’s Circle
Stage Manager: Caitie Murphy
Technical Consultant: Justin Gardam
Production Assistant: Zadie Kennedy Mccracken
Ticket Prices:
Preview: $35
Full: $49
Concession: $39
Group 6+: $39
Concessions:
Pensioners/Full-time students/MEAA members
Ticket sales are subject to a booking fee of $5.00 per ticket plus any merchant charges for payments by American Express
Ticket fees are charged reluctantly. As an unfunded CBD located venue, our expenses continue to rise. If fortyfivedownstairs is to survive, we are obliged to increase our revenue without inflicting costs on already struggling artists. Without support, we risk losing artists or having to close our doors. We do hope for your understanding!