Bio
JoAnna Ross is a power-house, multi-hyphenate creative & healer who is releasing her latest project “Hot 50!”, an hour comedy special, her most personal work yet, this spring.
A Broadway dancer turned yoga instructor turned writer/producer/performer, this Jersey girl is most regularly seen on the Lower East Side in the nightlife institution Schtick A Pole In It, a comedy and pole dancing show co-created with her partner, Dan Goodman thirteen years ago which has been featured in NYTimes, Time Out NY, Gothamist, and AM New York. JoAnna performs regularly at the New York Comedy Clubs, West Side Comedy Club, The Pear, Uncle Vinnie's and independent shows all over the 5 boroughs. JoAnna has featured/opened for Jackie the Joke Man, Sarah Colonna, Rich Vos, Lance Weiss among others. Online, she recently launched the “You Only Wear It Once” podcast where she sits with former brides in their wedding gowns to discuss marriage and the complex issues that get revealed when planning a wedding- all over bubbly, of course.
Little JoAnna started dancing at three years old and had a dream come true when cast in the original company of FOOTLOOSE on Broadway, which included performances on both the MACY’s Thanksgiving Parade and 4th of July Specials as well as CBS Saturday Morning and The Rosie O’Donnell Show. She’s also done major commercial work, including Dell’s “Dancing Pentiums” campaign for the Superbowl and on the west coast, danced in CHESS at the Ford Amphitheater. Ross found yoga when working through an injury and became an Anusara yoga teacher, teaching young and old along the way. She lent her expertise to “Got Zen” and “Naturally Beautiful” on Zen TV and even produced her own kids’ yoga instructional video “Yoga by the Dozen.” To get her fix of performing while healing, she took a women’s comedy class while living in Los Angeles and now refuses to leave the scene. Always a storyteller, Ross married her love of comedy with wisdom from her yoga students in her memoir “The Students I Hate: How I Achieved Happiness by Despising Everyone Around Me.” On film, she is featured in the hit short “Pretty Dead Girl-A Musical Necromance” directed by Shawn Ku and has produced them as well, including “Baby Abs” and “Skinja” which was shown at LA Comedy Film Festival and Fantasia Fest in Montreal.
Never one to back off hot topics, Ross dives in deep with “Hot 50!” including women’s healthcare, the pros & cons of marrying older and the secret life of menopause. Her audiences have young women thanking her, older women hugging her and men asking about VAG of Honor hats. So, of course, she made some herself.