Carol Woods

Carol Woods"I like to play comedy, I like to make people laugh, make them feel good. Of course, you can make them feel good by making them cry...let it all out, honey!" says Carol Woods Coleman, a singer and actress featured on several Riverwalk productions.

In 1989 she recreated her Laurence Oliver-nominated performance in the musical Blues In The Night, which played to great critical and audience acclaim for over a year in London's West End and in Tokyo, Osaka, and Nagoya, Japan. From the stage of the Picadilly Theatre, Carol stirred the London Times reviewer into "something close to rapture," and has firmly established herself as one of the brightest lights in London. Following the West End engagement, the show ran as a limited engagement at the Minetta Lane Theater in New York, her first New York appearance since starring in Tommy Tune's Stepping Out on Broadway in 1987.

Audiences around the world know Carol from her dynamic performance as Big Bertha in the smash hit One Mo' Time! both live on stage and in the television commercial. After One Mo' Time!, performing off- Broadway in the musical Taking My Turn, Carol "was simply breathtaking..." In her Broadway debut, the musical Grind directed by Harold Prince, audiences "thunderously applauded the biggest ovation of the night...at the most moving moment in the production"

Carol also appeared on Broadway in Big River and in several shows at the Billie Holiday Theater. She has been seen in The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas and has starred in the stage version of NBC's hit series 227, in the musical revue Mercer: Hooray for Johnny with Margaret Whiting and Julius LaRosa, and as Martin Luther King's mother in the world premier of the musical King in London.

Eddie Murphy's movie Raw featured Carol as Eddie's notorious Aunt Bunny, and viewers of CBS-TV's The Equalizer have seen Carol as a guest star. She was also seen on the acclaimed PBS documentary The Chemical People, and to thousands of Apple Computer dealers and customers, she is "The First Lady of Software." A master of character voices, her voice was heard in the animated cartoon Tails. In London, Carol appeared on the 1988 Olivier Awards telecast on England's most popular chat show Wogan, and recently starred in two musical television specials for Yorkshire Television.

Carol was deeply influenced by her grandfather, a Pentecostal minister with conservative feelings towards entertainment, and her mother, Marion Jones. Carol said, "When I went into show business, my mother was against it, but as I was grown she was supportive. But we never told my grandfather. He died aged 99 in 1972 but he never knew. I didn't think he could handle it. By that time, though, I had already performed in America and in England twice." Originally, Carol sung Gospel music ("We went to church seven days a week."), but after a career as a practical nurse, and a job with the Postal Service, her friends encouraged her to get her first club engagement, singing Misty at Frank's Steak house in Corona.

For many years, Carol continued supporting her two children by nursing while making her way up the show business ladder. After working in clubs from New York to London to Acapulco and recording albums and singles, Carol took over the role of Big Bertha Williams, the hard-drinking Vaudeville star in One Mo' Time! and, "(I) finally felt free to put all of my energy into music."

Fortunately for audiences around the world, Carol has been working non-stop ever since, with "an irrepressible sense of humor and a voice that is simply staggering." Happily, while in London Carol met Roy Coleman, a real estate entrepreneur, fell in love, and they were married in 1988. His support for her career has been unwavering, and her co-stars have been equally supportive. "Every place I've been has been like a family," she says, "and I thank God every day for my health, family, and success."

Carol Woods has received rave reviews in the current Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim’s Follies.

Carol Woods is featured in the Riverwalk programs: