In 1998 as co-librettist and composer of the musical, Tea and Crumpets, Joel won the San Francisco/Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Award and the 1999 Festival Theater USA/USC theater award for Best Original Production, which later toured in the U.S. and Scotland.
In 2006, as composer/librettist/lyricist, Joel adapted Jane Austen's novel, Emma, which won the Los Angeles Elate Theatre Award then later was an official selection of the 2007 New York Musical Theatre Festival.
In 2010 Joel's original short play, Petrified (upon which his musical version would be based), was selected winner of a new short play competition as part of their by the Rochester Repertory Company, and selected again in 2014 as part of the theater's "Treasures in Ten" Festival.