Joy Woods Pushes Past the Pressures of Being Broadway's First Black Gypsy: 'I'm Just the Next' (Exclusive)

Joy Woods is breaking ground on Broadway.

After a string of successful roles on the boards — including Six, The Notebook and Off-Broadway's Little Shop of Horrors — the 24-year-old talent landed in the record books with her role in George C. Wolfe's revival Gypsy, as the first Black actress to play Louise on the Great White Way (pun intended).

The part has an incredible transformation throughout the iconic Jule Styne-Stephen Sondheim musical, which is inspired by the 1957 memoirs of legendary burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee. Throughout the show, Louise goes from meek wallflower struggling to keep up with her sister June (Jordan Tyson) in their family Vaudeville act to the take-charge superstar stripper, all while under the unbearable pressure from her mother, Rose (Audra McDonald).

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Woods handles Louise's arc with remarkable poise and precision, her performance earning a 2025 Tony Award nomination for her work in the production, now open at the Majestic Theatre in New York City. And while much has been made about the monumental nature of the actress' casting, she tells PEOPLE that she isn’t interested in headlines or historic labels.

"I try to not think of it like that, because it that makes me feel pressure," Woods says.

Instead, she sees herself as “just the next person to tell this story” — a storyteller carrying a legacy forward with care, truth and clarity.

"I'm grateful to be somebody who makes people who look like me — who are younger and wondering what it is to see themselves as part of this world — see what I'm doing as something that they could do," she says. "I'm doing this for my sisters. I'm doing it for my cousins, for my mothers, for any Black woman. This story is really, truly a thing of generational trauma. So I'm showing the experience and what the intricacies and idiosyncrasies about being a Black woman with a Black mother."

Below, Woods goes deep with PEOPLE about unlocking Louise, working with McDonald and taking time to breathe during the rush of the season.

PEOPLE: Congratulations on all the success. How has your experience in Gypsy been?
WOODS: It's been good! It's been very educational. I'm learning a lot about being a leader and an actor and a person, and also the growing up 20-somethings of it all — all at the same time. It's overwhelming sometimes, but it just feels like an influx of downloads constantly. But ultimately, I'm very grateful.

How did you decide to approach Louise?
Like a blank slate. I really wanted to build her up slowly. It's like going on a first date: you want to take the time to get to know each other and what's important. And it takes time. When we had our first preview, I felt flat. But slowly, I've given her more shape and dimension.

Coincidentally, that's Louise's journey, too.
Right! Louise is figuring out how to communicate effectively and be heard — that is all she wants; to be seen and to be heard. She's in a world where she's unwanted. She tries to show people that she sees them, in an effort to make them reciprocate if she can. And when she can't get that from them, or from her mother, she takes it by the collar and gets it from the rest of the world. I think that's a thing that a lot of people can identify with, and I'm happy to share that corner of the Black experience — of the human experience — with more people.

Had you seen other actors perform the role in the past?
Growing up a child of the internet, my first introduction to theater was bootlegs and videos of people doing other shows. But I'm lucky to have avoided seeing past Gypsy revivals, so I didn't see any of Louise's performances other than my own. It's important for the sake of not trying to recreate, because you really want it to be your own thing. So I'm trying to block any of that out of my mind. To compare myself, that's a thief of joy.

What is it about Louise that really unlocked this character for you?
I will say that the day that Louise had her first strip as "Gypsy," she was 15. So by the time that she did what would be called "the dressing room scene in Minsky's," we decided that this version of the show, that would take place about two years post first strip. So she was not even 20! Not even legal, 18, when the show ended. And so if she's a child this whole show, you have to look at it through a child's lens. I certainly remember being a Black girl in a predominantly white school growing up. That's the part of me I'm channeling when I step on that stage.

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You're working with the fantastic Audra McDonald, who plays Mama Rose, your character's over-bearing mother. What has the experience been like of bonding with a performer who you don't necessarily bond with as a character?
First of all, she's the loveliest. She and Danny [Burstein, who plays Rose's love interest, Herbie] are the loveliest. They are really the mom and dad of the building.

When you ask that question, what comes to mind is at the end of act one, when Audra's finishing the end of "Everything's Coming Up Roses" and being a monster. We're holding hands and she yanks me over to stand closer to her at the very end of the song and the curtain comes down. And immediately after the curtain comes down, she turns around and looks at me like, "Are you good?" And clasps my hand into hers like, "Are you okay? I'm sorry you had to get through it." I'm like, "Girl, I'm right here with you! It's all good." But I think that immediate jump to caring for us — all of us in the building is really appreciated, especially from me.

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You've had such a rise in the past few years. And so much of this career is about "What's next?" Have you been able to stop and reflect on how far you've come?
It's funny that you ask that because right now, I'm definitely in a period of looking back and seeing just how rapid and accelerated this process has been leading up to this point, and how little I've given myself the opportunity to rest and take it in — the resting, you know...

And are you doing that. Are you resting?
I'm not, but because there's the mindset of there's always more to do, there's always more to learn, there's always more to hold close, there's always more to take in to change you — to be better. But there's also time to find those things. I am in no rush. I don't want to look back and see that I just did all of it and didn't celebrate it and didn't remain present to a point of being proud of myself. I don't want this time to pass and to not have felt those things. And these five, six years have gone by and I haven't done any of that.

I mean, The Notebook closed four days before Gypsy opened! That's insane!
Yeah. And what I've learned is, you can take the time. I just have chosen to not take the time because I thought that my time was going to run out. Maybe that's my fault, for my introduction to theater being Hamilton? But Gen Z, we were brought up constantly being told that the world is ending, and so having to get your life together as quickly as possible was just the thing for me. So I'm looking forward to taking a step back and looking back at things and being able to reflect because the grind is nice, but the grind means nothing if you can't frame it.

When did you get the performance bite? What made you interested in theater?
Well, I grew up in the Black church in Chicago, so theatrics were always a thing in the Black church. My mother was a dancer, of praise and worship. And there were always plays being done and things like that. So music and musicals were always around. We all had the bug — even my siblings.

How many siblings do you have?
I'm the last of six. I'm the only one that pursued performance, but we all love it. And some of them might disagree to say that they didn't catch the musical bug, but I know that they do. I will stand over everyone always and say, "You all like musicals! You just refuse to accept it!" I know if I turned on "It's All Over" from Dreamgirls, everybody would join in.

Were your parents supportive of this path you chose to go down?
Yes, but they had so many kids. School play rehearsals go for 13 hours a day, so as long as they had to pick nobody up in the meantime, they were happy with me doing something that fulfilled me. And then suddenly, it became something that could fulfill me and my pocket. I was confident enough to pursue it, and they trusted me — which is kind of crazy on their part, but good for them. And it ended up working out.

And what does confidence mean to you?
That confidence shows up in a way that we don't always talk about. It's a lot less of a, "I don't care what you say. This is me." It's less of a, "Oh, you're going to see what I got because what I got is good." To quote Flora on the Red Menace, "It's a quiet thing." When you know, you know. And who cares about how it happens or when it happens? It just is something that you don't let go of. You'll do the survival jobs, you'll stand in line for auditions just because it feels like what you're supposed to do. You don't think twice about it. So I think that's what confidence is. It's not second-guessing the things that you have to do to get to what you want, because you know that it's for you.

Tickets for Gypsy are now on sale. The 2025 Tony Awards air live from Radio City Music Hall on Sunday, June 8 on CBS.