Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald's talent is unparalleled in her range of talents and variety in her roles as a performer, singer and actor. As the winner of a record-breaking 6 Tony Awards (two Grammy Awards) and one Emmy Award, McDonald was named to Time magazine's list of 100 people who are influential in the year 2015. The president also awarded her Barack Obama's National Medal of Arts for her achievements. With a soprano of unmatched elegance and an aptitude of dramatizing the truth the roles she plays on Broadway or the opera stage are just as easy as the roles in movies and TV. In addition to her theatre work, she has many a career in recording and concert artist. She regularly performs in some of the top venues around the world. McDonald was raised at Fresno California by her musical parents. They also studied classical singing at Juilliard School, New York. After graduating, she received her very first Tony Award as Best Performance by an Featured Artist in an Musical in the Lincoln Center Theater for Carousel (1994). Over the next four years she won two more Tony Awards in the featured actress category, for her roles in The Broadway premier of Terrence McNally's production Master Class (1996) and his show Ragtime (1998) which gave her an unheard of number of Tony Awards before the age of thirty. In 2004, she was awarded her 4th Tony for the role that she portrayed alongside Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun. Then in 2012, when she was a lead actor in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess she received her fifth Tony and was awarded the first prize in the lead actor category. She created Broadway history when she became the world's most decorated Tony Award performer. Her portrayal in the role of Billie Holiday at Emerson's Bar & Grill as well as the role that also helped launch her Olivier Award nominated debut on London's West End in 2017, earned her six Tony Awards. As well as recording the record for the highest number of competitive wins by an actor as well as becoming the first actor to be awarded honors in all four acting categories. McDonald also has credits for theatre shows such as The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV 2004 110 in the Shade (2006) Twelfth Nigh (2009) The Twelfth Night also was the Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut show, Shuffle Along Or The Making of the Musical Sense in 1921 and All That Followed (16) Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune (192019) as well as Ohio State Murders (2023) McDonald was first seen on TV as a dramatic actor on the Peabody Award winner CBS series Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. She went on to co-star with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber in the critically acclaimed 1999 Disney/ABC television remake of Annie and in 2000 she was a frequent guest on the NBC's hit show Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald won her debut Emmy for her role in the HBO version of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Wit directed by Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson. In 2003, she returned to the screen, this time with Mister Sterling produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., with Josh Brolin. The actress was a part of the WB The Bedford Diaries The Bedford Diaries in early 2006. The following season, she was an recurring role on the NBC television show Kidnapped. In 2016, McDonald was nominated for the fourth Emmy award for her appearance as a character in HBO's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, a film-special. The Bite will be a six-episode series about a pandemic coproduced with Spectrum Originals, CBS Studios and Taylor Schilling in 2021. She starred in 2009 as she played U.S. Attorney Liz Lawrence on CBS's legal drama The Good Wife. In 2018, McDonald took on the role of Liz Reddick as a regular in Paramount+'s The Good Fight. She was awarded three Critics Choice Award nods for this performance. In the present, she is a guest in Julian Fellowes's historic drama The Gilded Age.