Born and raised in Canada, Robert Joy spent three years with the Newfoundland Company CODCO as an actor, writer and composer. Joy was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford before landing in NYC to pursue an acting career. His first Off-Broadway work was as Peter Van Daan in "The Diary of Anne Frank" (1978-79). His subsequent appearances include John Guare's "Lydie Breeze" (1982), the 1983 world premiere of Roger Miller's musical "Big River" (in which he originated the role of Huck Finn at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts) and the Broadway productions of Noel Coward's "Hay Fever" (1985-86), opposite Rosemary Harris and Campbell Scott, and "The Nerd" (1987). He originated the role of Julian Hyde, an actor with a secret during the Golden Age of Motion Pictures in "Hyde in Hollywood" (1989), a role he recreated for PBS' "American Playhouse" in 1991.