Emerging from a 1976 debut with the touring company of Don't Bother Me I Can't Cope, Woodard quickly moved to Broadway, appearing in the 1977 revival of Hair and later joining the original cast of the hit musical Ain't Misbehavin', which earned her Tony and Drama Desk nominations for featured actress. Her stage work earned two Obie Awards, first for Suzan-Lori Parks’s In the Blood (1999) and later…
