Joan Agnes Whalley, OAM (December 1927 – 27 August 2021),[1] was an Australian actress, teacher and artistic director of Twelfth Night Theatre in Bowen Hills, Brisbane, from 1962 to 1976.
Rhoda Felgate, MBE, a visiting examiner in Speech and Drama and also artistic director of Twelfth Night Theatre in Brisbane, had seen considerable ability in Whalley as a young student acting in college plays.
"[2] Whalley went on to study a course in theatre production later in the 1950s at the London Actors Studio, a training institution that placed emphasis on a new acting style advocating realism and scorn for inhibitions.
Robert Quentin, who had noted Whalley's success as a director of Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett and also the Queensland Centenary Pageant in 1959, invited her to lecture in voice for two years at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney as part of its foundation staff.
Her production of King Lear by William Shakespeare in 1966 was commended by theatre critic, Bob Hart, who commented in the Brisbane 'Courier Mail', "Director Joan Whalley has done a tremendous job with 'Lear', and has made full use of her cast.
"[10] Whalley taught well-known Australian actors, such as Judith McGrath, Sigrid Thornton, Penny Downie, Rowena Wallace, Russell Kiefel, Carol Burns.
[12] In 1970, Whalley directed 'Looking Glass on Yesteryear' by playwright Jill Morris, staged before The Queen in the Brisbane City Hall as part of the Captain Cook bicentenary celebrations.
The Brisbane Courier-Mail featured a full page spread for the grand opening of "Twelfth Night's new $350,000 theatre complex at Bowen Hills".