It’s a universal experience: You look at a gadget you’ve just used—a corkscrew, a wine opener, a cup holder—and you say, “I wonder who thought of this?”

In “Joy: The Musical,” the new play on stage at the George Street Playhouse, through December 30, the gadget is a mop. Oh, not just any mop, but a mop you can wring out without bending down.

It’s a “Miracle Mop,” and it’s a real thing, invented by Joy Mangano, played here by Broadway veteran Erika Henningsen.

“So often,” the actress said in a phone chat, “in any entertainment medium, the story is about the work of Madam Curie or the Wright Brothers but rarely about the things we touch on a daily basis. What makes this story special is that you don’t have to be a genius to create something that will make people’s lives a little better. You don’t have to create the biggest thing in the world to have an impact. It might feel small, but not to the people who use it.”

But “Joy: The Musical” with a book by Ken Davenport and music and lyrics by AnnMarie Milazzo, reveals that getting from the idea to the million-dollar mop was no snap for Mangano. She was barely keeping it together as a single mom, carrying all the burdens of a family that at first dismissed her inventive ambition, and once she got the mop into production, hit roadblocks that nearly drove her into bankruptcy.

Henningsen said the play presents Mangano as a woman struggling against cultural expectations, a male-dominated business world, and a legal system that all seemed to be nudging her “back to ground zero—mother, breadwinner, a person trying to keep it all together.”

Mangano ultimately prevailed, and the Miracle Mop was only one of her many achievements, but her story shows how easily dreams can be stifled, and not only by forces outside the dreamer.

“The more powerful forces can come from within ourselves,” Henningsen said. “‘How dare I have an idea, to think of something—even if it’s small—that is worthy to be in the world?’”

The first step for a woman with an idea, she said, is trusting herself, trusting that she can bring a brainstorm to reality:

“But so many women stop themselves at the gate and don’t allow themselves to get to that corporate boardroom moment.”

The story of Mangano’s journey to the boardroom could be told in prose alone; in fact, she told it herself in her autobiography, “Inventing Joy.” But Henningsen is elated to be telling part of this story with lyrics spun by Milazzo, who teamed up with Paul Scott Goodman to write the songs for “A Walk on the Moon” which concluded George Street’s season last spring.

Henningsen said she expects to see the audience leaning forward in their seats to take in these words.

“They have to,” she said. “We’re not giving the audience a chance to sit back and just let the lyrics wash over them. We do have some songs that are strictly for entertainment, but some of these lyrics you could take and do as a monologue, they feel that textual. They’re poetic, but they feel the way people talk. So much of the story, and the characters’ identities, is crafted into these songs.”

Henningsen has had plenty of experience with songs, including turns on Broadway as Fantine in “Les Miserables” and as Cady Heron in “Mean Girls,” and numerous regional productions. She is also a philanthropist, teacher, and mentor, a path she set out on at the University of Michigan as co-president of a student-run organization that exposes public-school students to the arts as a means of encouraging self-expression and building self-esteem. Her many activities since then have ranged from teaching classes and leading workshops for New York City students who have limited access to the arts to helping to create a library for a school in Kenya.

The actress attaches particular importance to introducing young people to the theater:

“When I think of the people who shaped what I am, it was my drama teacher, my voice teacher. They helped me share my individuality and tap into something deeper than I was aware of at that age.”

She noted that young people in the text and TikTok era are under pressure to be aware of and engaged in everything that’s happening from moment to moment.

“The thing I have loved about theater,” she said, “is that it is a meditative experience. Nothing can touch you. There’s nobody you have to text back. It gives students the opportunity to stand on stage even for five minutes and just be present. There is an incredible amount of distractions and anxiety today. Artistic spaces are safe havens where they can disengage from that part of the world. The more I work with them the more I see how much they need that.” 

In a way, this means of encouraging self-expression evokes Joy Mangano’s struggle to have her ideas taken seriously—by her family, by the business world, by anybody.

“We are so often told that our ideas are stupid or not worth sharing,” Henningsen said. It is so easy to edit ourselves, to have an idea and say, ‘That’s dumb. I’m not going to share it.’ I think that is a responsibility we have to ourselves, our children, our students—to encourage that kernel of an idea. If we don’t, what’s the point of being there?”

For more information on the show or to purchase tickets, click here.

PHOTOS BY T. Charles Erickson