Joni Marie McLeod

Joni (she/her) spent many years believing her artistic medium of choice was theatre. Musical theatre, to be precise. She grew up on the stage, spending much of her life performing, singing, rehearsing, and falling in love with storytelling through live performance. Musical theatre quickly became one of her greatest passions and remained at the center of her artistic identity for many years. But once she started broadening her horizons, she couldn’t stop exploring all the mediums. She has performed in many musical and dramatic productions over the years, including Kate Monster in Avenue Q, Poppy in Noises Off, and Miss Honey in Matilda the Musical. Theatre taught her not only performance and collaboration, but also how to connect emotionally with an audience, build community, and find joy in the creative process.

She started writing, and had three short plays produced in the Mendocino College Festival of New Plays. She started directing and teaching music and musical theatre at the School of Performing Arts and Cultural Education, where she found a love for teaching the next generation of artists through musical theatre.

Then she arrived here, with this wonderful group of people, and was given the opportunity to be part of the Hardly Artists film production of Thank You, Ten in 2021. A new spark was ignited.

At the time, Joni was working professionally as a Board Certified Behavior Analyst (BCBA), but the deeper she became involved in storytelling, filmmaking, teaching, and creative collaboration, the more impossible it became to ignore how much art had become a central part of her life. Eventually, she made the decision to leave the field of behavior analysis and pursue Hardly Artists and independent self-employment full time as a freelance writer, arts educator, editor, and creative producer.

Since then, she has been part of Hardly Artists productions as the Director of Operations, assistant director, producer, camera assistant, writer, co-director, and editor. She got to try her hand at writing and co-directing her own short film, A Talk of Shame, and premiered her editing debut, Spitting Image, in Fall 2024. She has also been part of the team leading Hardly Artists’ arts education programming through Ukiah Unified School District, helping bring theatre, film, and arts education into local schools and classrooms.

Along the way, she discovered a surprising love for Excel spreadsheets, production calendars, meeting notes, and to-do lists. She also started editing content for social media, not just for Hardly Artists, but also for Ukiah Players Theatre.

She entered a screenwriting competition and not only won 3rd place in the final round, but ended up with three new screenplays for Hardly Artists to add to their project list.

After dabbling in many aspects of art and theatre, she no longer has an “artistic medium of choice.” All she knows is that she wants to continue learning, creating, and soaking up every minute in and out of the spotlight she loves so much.

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." – Maya Angelou