Soara-Joye Ross

Soara-Joye Ross, also credited professionally 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 worked in musical theatre on Broadway, Off-Broadway, in national and international tours, and in regional productions across the United States and abroad, including engagements in the Netherlands, Belgium, and Switzerland.

Ross was adopted as an infant by Rita T. Ross and Joseph Ross and was raised in Queens alongside her older adopted brother, David C. Ross, who is eleven months her senior. The two attended Bayside High School, where Ross served as cheerleading captain, was named Homecoming Queen, and participated actively in music and theatre. 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 traveled internationally with the chorus to Hungary and Austria. She also performed as a soloist with the school's jazz band and appeared 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 twelve with Vita Carter, a teacher she met through her church, and later majored in vocal performance at Nassau Community College before completing her training at AMDA. In 2005, Ross hired a private investigator and reunited with her birth mother, Lavonne D. Patterson, a process through which she also reconnected with her paternal grandmother, maternal grandfather, birth father Orick Sweetwine, and additional siblings, aunts, uncles, and her maternal grandmother. Her adoptive mother died in 2017.

Ross made her Broadway debut in Dance of the Vampires and subsequently appeared in the revival of Les Misérables. Her Broadway career spans from 2002 to 2019 and also includes The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. Her most recent Broadway credit is Hadestown, where she originated the role of Fate 3, an accordion-playing contralto, and also understudied and performed the leading role of Persephone on multiple occasions. Her work in Hadestown earned her a Drama Desk Award nomination for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical in 2019.

Off-Broadway, Ross appeared in John Doyle's production of Carmen Jones at Classic Stage Company, playing the role of Frankie. The New York Times described her performance as "the life force incarnate," and the production brought her the Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, along with nominations for the Drama Desk Award and AUDELCO Awards. 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's 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 contributed to the development of new musicals through workshops, readings, and recordings. In 2009, she starred as Mama Lila in the New York Musical Theatre Festival production of 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 and 2016 runs, having participated in its 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' circa 1999, national and European tours 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 circa 2008. Regional theatre highlights include the world premiere of My Best Friend's Wedding at the Ogunquit Playhouse in 2024, directed by seven-time Tony Award winner Susan Stroman; the premiere of Divorce Party the Musical at the Kravis Center circa 2010 to 2011, followed by a national tour; and the east coast premiere of Summer of Love at the Ogunquit Playhouse circa 2012 to 2013. Among her many additional regional credits are Anything Goes at Arena Stage, in which she portrayed Reno Sweeney; A Little Night Music at Denver Center, in which she played Désirée Armfeldt; Legally Blonde at Starlight Theatre, in which she played Paulette; Young Frankenstein at the Ogunquit Playhouse; Nina Simone: Four Women at the Alabama Shakespeare Festival; Tick, Tick... Boom! at the Alliance Theatre; Ragtime at Gateway Playhouse and Weston Playhouse; and Aida at the Arvada Center, among others.

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 film and television work includes a role as the Handi-World cashier in the feature film Garden State and appearances on HBO's The Flight Attendant and Crashing.

Ross has maintained a sustained commitment to arts education and community advocacy. In 2006, she co-founded OFF-STAGE, 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 in social work, also organized by Dr. Katherine Savin. She has served as a mentor through the Vanguard Theater Company's Broadway Buddy Program and has been invited on multiple occasions to speak to students at AMDA, where she was also invited by department head Scott Conner to review the school's musical theatre curriculum in Los Angeles.