Joan Roberts

Sunny River was Roberts' first Broadway production. She played Madeleine Caresse December 4, 1941 - January 3, 1942. Later in 1942 she played in Hit the Deck with the Los Angeles Civic Light Opera.

Roberts initially auditioned for the role of Ado Annie in the original Broadway production of Oklahoma! (which eventually went to Celeste Holm), but the show's librettist Oscar Hammerstein cast her as the female lead, Laurey. At the time of her death she was one of four surviving cast members of the original 1943 opening night production of Oklahoma! and the only one who played a principal role (Celeste Holm died several weeks earlier), along with George S. Irving, Marc Platt, and Bambi Linn. Roberts subsequently starred as Sara Longstreet on Broadway in the musical High Button Shoes.

In addition to her work as an actress, Roberts taught voice lessons and presented workshops on singing and voice projection. In 2011 the University of North Carolina's School of the Arts mounted a production of Oklahoma! that replicated the original Broadway staging of the show. Roberts and Celeste Holm both attended that production and were present at an event honoring the two actresses.

She was in retirement for many years on Long Island, New York, when she appeared as Heidi Schiller in the 2001 Broadway revival of Stephen Sondheim's Follies. Over the years she was seen in documentaries about Oscar Hammerstein II, George Abbott and in the film Broadway: The Golden Age, by the Legends Who Were There.