Carol Woods

Carol Woods Broadway theatre credits include Matron Mama Morton in Chicago, Stella Deems in the Roundabout Theater's 2001 revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies, Mrs Crosby in Neal Simon's The Goodbye Girl (1993), and Maybelle in Grind in 1985. She also made a special guest appearance in the 2002 One Mo Time revival as Ma Reed. She was nominated for an Olivier Award for her role in the 1987 London production of Blues in the Night, which led to a NYC run at the Minetta Lane Theater, and in 2008 reprised the role in a San Francisco Production. As a founding member of Tony Randall's National Actors Theatre, in 1992, Carol appeared in their first two productions A Little Hotel on the Side and as Tituba in The Crucible. She left Big River in 1987 to play Rose in the Tommy Tune-directed Stepping Out (play).On Tour she recreated the role of Jeanette Burmeister in The Full Monty.

Off-Broadway, she is best known for her portrayal of Big Bertha in The Village Gate's 1979 production of One Mo' Time and its TV commercial where she sang part of You've Got The Right Key But You're Working On The Wrong Keyhole and viewers were invited to see the rest in person. In 1993, she portrayed Lorena Hickok in First Lady Suite at The Public Theater. In 1997 at the Samuel Beckett Theater she appeared as Vy, Aladdin's mother in Dreamstuff a contemporary musical spin on Aladdin.

Her regional theater credits include An Evening Dinner Theatre in Elmsford, New York where she appeared as Jewel in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas. At the McCarter Theater in Princeton, New Jersey, Carol Woods appeared in C'mon and Hear: Irving Berlin's America (1994), A Christmas Carol (1996), Greensboro: A Requiem (1996). At Montclair State University in 1992 Carol Woods repeated the starring role in Ma Rainey's Black Bottom, which she had played in London's Royal National Theatre three years earlier. During Theaterfest '94 she appeared in Side by Side by Sondheim, and during TheatreFest '98, Triplets: The Diva Musical with Ruth Brown, and Angela Robinson. For the Williamstown Theatre Festival she appeared in Hot l Baltimore (2000).

Her first film credit was as the infamous Aunt Bunny in Eddie Murphy Raw (1987). She reprised her stage role of Rose in Stepping Out, based on the play of the same name, with Liza Minnelli, Shelley Winters, Bill Irwin and Jane Krakowski. Rose's son in the film was played by Carol's real son Raymond Rickman. She performed at both the Toronto Benefit for Starlight during the filming and at the "Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS" New York Premiere of the film.

In Sweet and Lowdown (1999), as Helen Minton, she sings All Of Me. In The Honeymooners (2005) She Plays in Mama Gibson She also appears in Across the Universe (2007).

Having been directed by Jack Wrangler in cabaret, she appears as herself in the 2008 documentary Wrangler: Anatomy of an Icon. Woods is also featured in Steam as Ella, with Ruby Dee, and in When the Evening Comes (2009) (as Mrs. Anderson).