'Gypsy' star Joy Woods dishes on her Tony Award nomination and advice from Audra McDonald

USA Today

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'Gypsy' star Joy Woods dishes on her Tony Award nomination and advice from Audra McDonald
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'Gypsy' star Joy Woods calls Audra McDonald 'graceful.' Here's why.
Joy Woods, a first-time Tony nominee for her role in "Gypsy," chats with USA TODAY's Ralphie Aversa about the musical and her co-star Audra McDonald.
NEW YORK – Joy Woods is a first-time Tony Awards nominee for her performance alongside Audra McDonald in director George C. Wolfe's revival of the Broadway musical "Gypsy." Ahead of Sunday's award show, the Chicago-born actress asked McDonald, who is also nominated, how she should prepare.
"(McDonald) said to expect chaos," Woods, 24, tells USA TODAY. "But it's also a celebration. So it's not a bad kind of chaos. It's one that we can look forward to."
Woods also decided that she'll face the "chaos" without any family nearby.
"My brother or my parents or my grandma are usually at openings with me," she says. "Those things, you get pulled in so many directions that you never really get to see them. So I was like, 'I'm going to do this alone. I'm going to take my Kind bars and my Celsius (drink) and wing it honey, and I think that's going to be really good for me."
'Gypsy' made headlines and Broadway history
"Gypsy," based loosely on the memoirs of striptease artist Gypsy Rose Lee, first came to Broadway in 1959. It and several of the subsequent revivals earned Tony recognition. The original earned eight Tony nominations, and the 1989 production won the Tony for best revival. Patti LuPone played Gypsy's mother, Rose, in the 2008 revival and won the Tony for best leading actress in a musical. This year, McDonald, the first Black actor cast in the role on Broadway, is nominated in the same category for the same role.
She and LuPone have been in the headlines together recently following an interview with the New Yorker, published on May 26, in which LuPone was critical of McDonald for supporting a criticizing social media post by Broadway performer Kecia Lewis. LuPone complained that "Hell's Kitchen," a Broadway show that Lewis is in, was too "loud." At the time, LuPone was in the comedy "The Roommate," which played next door. Lewis took to social media to call LuPone's criticism and actions, "racially microaggressive." On Instagram, McDonald supported Lewis' post. LuPone responded in the New Yorker by saying McDonald "wasn't a friend."
After the New Yorker feature, McDonald told "CBS Mornings" that she was unaware of any rift between her and LuPone. Then, the Broadway theater community wrote an open letter that called for the "Agatha All Along" actress and other performers who "use their platform to publicly demean, harass or disparage fellow artists" to be excluded from the Tony Awards and similar industry events. LuPone has since apologized for her remarks.
In his review of the 2025 production, USA TODAY's Patrick Ryan wrote, "In casting a Black actress as Rose for the first time ever on Broadway, the show takes on subtle yet powerful new meaning, despite no changes to Arthur Laurents' original book. It's blatant, for instance, that Rose prioritizes the lighter skinned June, in hopes that she might seem more palatable to the predominantly white vaudeville circuit."
Woods, the first Black performer cast as Louise on Broadway, reveals she and McDonald have had "a few" conversations about the role of race in "Gypsy."
"I think she's been very graceful at letting me find this on my own," Woods says of McDonald's mentorship. "She's just the most patient, calm, giving scene partner and I felt like I was such a fish out of water starting this process. I didn't know if I was ready. I didn't know if I was right for it.
"We haven't had many conversations about (my casting), but I think it's felt when we're (on stage together), which I think is really special."