Katy Lipson (Aria Entertainment) & Jim Kierstead (Kierstead Productions) create a new partnership developing & presenting new musicals in London and New York launching with a co-production of the new Bill Russell & Janet Hood musical Unexpected Joy. Premiering off-Broadway at the York Theatre Company and then transferring to Southwark Playhouse from 6 - 29 September 2018.

Unexpected Joy is the story of three generations of female singers, long-held family tensions and a week together where change is in the air – Joy, a baby boomer pop star, is visited by her daughter, Rachel and granddaughter Tamara. Rachel is married to a prominent televangelist, so Joy is reluctant to divulge that she’s planning to marry Lou, another singer who happens to be a woman. A week with all four together is bound to lead to tension, laughter, discoveries and happiness that really is unexpected.  
Let the sparks and music fly!
 
In a time when the awareness of diversity and acceptance in society is at an all-time high, it’s the perfect opportunity to examine differences within our own families. It’s easy sometimes to disregard strangers who believe and live differently than the way we do, but what happens when those differences occur within our own family units? Unexpected Joy explores this concept by introducing three generations of women who have different values, dreams, and goals.  After drawing strong lines in the sand about what behaviours and thoughts each deems to be acceptable and unacceptable, at the end of the day, the question really is how can people get along and be the family they were always meant to be by finding common ground.  Through laughter, tears, self-discovery, and an original and compelling score, Unexpected Joy encourages its characters, as well as the audience, to take a journey of self-discovery because, at the end of the day, we really are all just one big family.