Joye Ross

Soara-Joye Ross, also credited as Joy Ross, Joye Ross, and Joy E. T. Ross, is an American actress and singer born on August 16 in Queens, New York. A graduate of the American Musical and Dramatic Academy, she has built a career spanning Broadway, Off-Broadway, national and international tours, regional theatre, film, and television across more than two decades.

Ross made her Broadway debut in Dance of the Vampires and subsequently appeared in the revival of Les Misérables. She joined the cast of Hadestown as Fate 3, a contralto role that incorporated accordion playing, and additionally understudied and performed the leading role of Persephone on multiple occasions. Her fourth Broadway credit is Porgy and Bess, giving her a Broadway presence that spans from 2002 to 2019.

Her Off-Broadway work includes John Doyle's production of Carmen Jones at Classic Stage Company, in which she played Frankie. That performance earned her the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, along with nominations for the Drama Desk Award and AUDELCO Awards. The New York Times described her in the role as "the life force incarnate." Additional Off-Broadway credits include Single Black Female, a two-woman comedy directed by Colman Domingo; Disenchanted! at the Westside Theatre; Dessa Rose at Lincoln Center Theater, for which she originated her role in the workshop and appears on the original cast recording; Jerry Springer: The Opera at Carnegie Hall; The Tin Pan Alley Rag at Roundabout Theatre Company; and Promenade at New York City Center/Encores! Off-Center. Ross is also part of the original Off-Broadway cast of Disenchanted: The Musical and is featured on its tenth-anniversary cast album edition.

Ross has originated roles in new works at various stages of development. At the 2009 New York Musical Theatre Festival, she starred as Mama Lila in Cross That River and received the festival's Best of Fest Award for Outstanding Individual Performance. She appeared in The First Noel at the Apollo Theater during its 2015–2016 runs, having participated in the workshop, and is featured on the cast recording. In 2024, she created the role of Aria in the workshop of Marian, a new musical based on the life of Marian Anderson, directed by Tamara Tunie.

Her touring credits include a European tour of Ain't Misbehavin' around 1999, a national tour and European tour of Smokey Joe's Café — the national tour featuring Gladys Knight — and the national tour of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess from 2013 to 2014. She also performed in Palazzo Colombino in Switzerland around 2008, and has worked in productions in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Basel, Switzerland.

Regional theatre has been a consistent and wide-ranging part of Ross's career. She starred in the world premiere of My Best Friend's Wedding at the Ogunquit Playhouse in 2024, directed by seven-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman, and in the east coast premiere of Summer of Love at the same venue around 2012–2013. She appeared in the premiere of Divorce Party the Musical at the Kravis Center, followed by a national tour that included West Palm Beach, Los Angeles, and Fort Lauderdale around 2010–2011. Her regional credits also include Reno Sweeney in Anything Goes at Arena Stage, Désirée Armfeldt in A Little Night Music at Denver Center, Paulette in Legally Blonde at Starlight Theatre, Cinderella at Theatre Under the Stars, Young Frankenstein at the Ogunquit Playhouse, Nina Simone: Four Women at Alabama Shakespeare Festival, Sister Act and The Call at Arkansas Repertory Theatre, Tick, Tick... Boom! at Alliance Theatre, Waitress at the Cape Playhouse, Ragtime at Gateway Playhouse and Weston Playhouse, and Aida at Arvada Center, among others. Ross has been noted as one of the first Black actresses to play several leading roles in major regional productions.

In concert, Ross has appeared with Connecticut's Waterbury Symphony Orchestra in Broadway Scores alongside Debbie Gravitte and Andrea McArdle. She has headlined solo cabarets including This Is My Life: Gotta Fly at the Laurie Beechman Theatre and From Broadway to the World at the Metropolitan Club. In 2021, she starred as Diana in the first-ever all-Black concert reading of Next to Normal.

Her screen credits include the feature film Garden State, in which she played the Handi-World cashier, and television appearances on HBO's The Flight Attendant and Crashing.

Ross was raised in Queens alongside her older adopted brother, David C. Ross, who is eleven months her senior, by adoptive parents Rita T. Ross and Joseph Ross. She and her brother attended Bayside High School, where she served as Homecoming Queen, cheerleading captain, and a soloist with the jazz band, and was active in music and theater. As a member of the All-City High School Chorus, she performed as a soloist at Lincoln Center, Carnegie Hall, the Rainbow Room, and the MetLife Building, and toured internationally to Hungary and Austria. She performed with the youth company of Black Spectrum Theatre in Jamaica, Queens, under the direction of Fulton Hodges, in productions that received AUDELCO Awards. She began studying classical voice at age 12 with Vita Carter and later majored in vocal performance at Nassau Community College before completing her training at AMDA. In 2005, she hired a private investigator and reunited with her birth mother, Lavonne D. Patterson, and through that process also reconnected with her paternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, birth father Orick Sweetwine, and additional family members including siblings, aunts, uncles, and her maternal grandmother. Her adoptive mother died in 2017.

Beyond performance, Ross co-founded OFF-STAGE in 2006, a support group for performers navigating the entertainment industry. In 2010, she co-facilitated ACT1, a support group for young women living with Type 1 diabetes, co-founded with Dr. Katherine Savin, and in 2020 she launched DIALICIOUS, a virtual support group for women with Type 1 diabetes. She has spoken on academic panels at Hunter College, Sacramento State, and the University of the Pacific on topics including chronic illness, disability, identity, and resilience in the arts, and in 2021 delivered a performative lecture on hypoglycemia for graduate students studying social work, also organized by Dr. Katherine Savin. Ross has mentored young artists through the Vanguard Theater Company's Broadway Buddy Program and has spoken to students at AMDA on multiple occasions; she was also invited by AMDA Los Angeles musical theatre department head Scott Conner to review the school's music theatre curriculum.