Joy Mangano musical is all about the woman behind the mop

First things first — it’s not a musical about a mop.

“Joy, A New True Musical,” running through Aug. 17 at the Off-Broadway Laura Pels Theatre in Manhattan, is a musical about the woman behind the mop — specifically Joy Mangano, the Long Island entrepreneur best known for creating the Miracle Mop. It’s a rags-to-riches story for the ages.

Mangano, who lives in Nissequogue, was a struggling single mother juggling three children, her agoraphobic mother, a gruff dad, musician ex-husband and several dead-end jobs when she was struck with the idea for the self-squeezing mop. If the story sounds familiar, you might be remembering the 2015 movie, “Joy,” starring Jennifer Lawrence, who won a Golden Globe for the role. Ten years later, the story transfers to the stage, after writer-producer Ken Davenport heard Mangano was interested in making a musical and secured the rights to her 2017 biography, “Inventing Joy.”

“There's something about her story that’s just so special and so unique,” said Davenport, admitting that he was skeptical at first. “I was like, wait, a musical about a mop?” When he read the book, he said, “it all became very clear to me that, of course, this would not be a musical about a mop. The mop was just the gateway.”

Davenport said he was hooked after their first lunch meeting, when instead of shaking hands, Mangano lovingly pinched his cheek. “She changed so many lives, including her family’s,” he said. “She has been an inspiration to so many people. And the interesting thing is she did it with a mop.”

“It’s beyond surreal,” Mangano said in a recent interview from her home. “I’m so honored,” Mangano said, because really, “it’s just the path I’ve led in life.” She has high hopes for the show, mostly that it inspires others to follow through with their dreams, knowing it’s OK to “start with nothing if you just have determination and courage.”

“If you loved the movie, you will love the show,” Mangano said, especially Betsy Wolfe’s voice. “I wish I could sing like her. She has the voice of an angel.”

It’s a mutual admiration society. “She's so supportive and has been from Day One,” said Wolfe, noting Mangano has been an active participant from the first table read. “Joy knows what she wants and she knows what works,” Wolfe said, adding despite her “gentle way of being very assertive, she also knows when to just let other people do their thing.”

An inventive mind

The show opens on an empty stage. A spotlight picks up a cardboard box labeled “Joy’s Box of Inventions. Do Not Touch.” The message is clear — Mangano’s creativity started early on. Among her first ideas is a glow-in-the-dark collar that would make it easier for dogs to be seen at night. When we first meet Mangano, she’s just been fired from her job as an airline clerk and things don’t look good.

While everyone involved acknowledges some creative tinkering, the story unfolds pretty much as it really happened. “It’s the life I lived,” Mangano said. “They’re just portraying it.” Struggling to make her mortgage payments, as the show portrays the story, Mangano fears she’ll lose her home. The situation is dire, with her father and ex sharing the basement, while she lives with her mother and daughter upstairs. (Note, Mangano and her former husband, Tony Miranne, actually have three children, but for the show “we combined three children into one,” explained director Lorin Latarro.)

Where does the mop come in? A wine bottle breaks and Mangano grabs a mop to clean up the spill. Squeezing it, she cuts her hand on some broken glass. Inspiration strikes. She grabs her daughter’s crayons and some household odds and ends, and eventually the mop is born.

Selling it is the problem. And Mangano, it turns out, is a master at that. But success does not come quickly or easily. She hits up local stores, even demonstrating the mop at festivals and in a Kmart parking lot. Not much luck. Her mother, who does little all day but watch television, discovers Joan Rivers on QVC and the rest, as they say, is history.

The story is so uplifting, Davenport said. “It’s not about writing the great American novel that changed the shape of literature,” he said. “It was this very simple thing and yet it had such a massive impact.” Think of all the people this touched, he said, and the jobs it’s created. “We all have ideas,” he continued, “but what makes this resonate is that she actually did it. And look what happened.”

“I think a lot of women will come see this show with their mothers, their daughters,” Wolfe said. “I think people will see themselves.” Wolfe said she watched hours of clips of Mangano selling things on QVC. When she spent time with Mangano, her goal was to get into her head about what she was like “before she became this polished woman on TV. It was important to get into what she was feeling when she self-doubted herself the most.”

Wolfe said what stands out most in the show is how Mangano dealt with adversity, especially when she travels to Texas, alone, to win back her patent. “People see success as something that … falls into place,” said Wolfe, who owns her own business, BroadwayEvolved, a musical training program. “What is beautifully represented on this stage … is derived from something that's ordinary.” It’s emotional, Wolfe said. “I've never choked up so many times during a show.”

“I think her story's incredible, she persevered when most people stop,” Latarro said. “What makes it so special is she just keeps going.”

There are also fun moments amid the drama, Latarro noted, notably at the end of Act 1 when Mangano goes on QVC and, after a few moments of utter terror, Mangano hesitatingly tells her story and the mops begin to sell. (A video of that actual moment plays as the audience leaves the theater, along with statistics showing, among other things, more than $3 billion in sales for her business empire.)

An Oprah moment

The end of the first act is an Oprah moment, Latarro said, explaining that the cast comes into the aisles and distributes about 12 mops to, it must be said, joyful audience members. Picture it — you get a mop, and you get a mop, and you get a mop!

Davenport is hoping the show gets its own “QVC moment” — the call to move a few blocks over to a Broadway theater. “That’s my goal as a theater maker,” he said, suggesting that, not surprisingly, Mangano has got feelers out to help make that happen.

He’s at every performance working on fixes with Latarro, which he’ll do until the show officially opens on July 20. 

No matter what happens, the show tells an important story, Davenport said. One of the most exciting things, he added, is that it makes people “want to go home and invent something.” And to think about their families, which he said was one of Mangano’s chief issues while negotiating the rights to the story. “She was concerned about how her family would be portrayed,” he said, a subject Mangano is eager to discuss.

“I’m a big believer in family,” she said, adding that her children and ex-husband all participate in the business. People ask her how she can work with family. Her response: “Who can you trust more? It's so beautiful,” she said, “when you love what you do with the people you love.”