Audra Mc Donald

Audra is a singular artist with regard to the scope and diversity of her talents as a performer and songwriter. Her record-breaking success includes seven Tony Awards two Grammy Awards as well as one Emmy Award in 2015 she was selected as one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people. She also received the National Medal of Arts--America's highest honor for achievement in the arts--from the President Barack Obama. Because of her beautiful tone, and unbeatable ability of telling dramatic tales her success has been evident on Broadway as well as at the opera, as well as for television and film. Alongside her theatrical work she maintains a major career as a recording and concert performer who regularly appears at world's foremost venues. McDonald was brought up at Fresno California by her musical parents. They also studied classical singing at Juilliard School, New York. After graduating McDonald was awarded her Tony Award Best Performance for the Lead Actress of a Musical at Carousel in the Lincoln Center Theater. In the following four years she was awarded two additional Tony Awards for the category of featured actress. She was in the Broadway premier productions of Terrence McNally's musical Ragtime as well as Terrence McNally's production of Master Class in 1996. The result was an astonishing amount of three Tony Awards by the time she reached the age of 30. She took home her 4th Tony by starring on stage in A Raisin in the Sun alongside Sean Diddy Combs. Then in 2013, she took her fifth Tony as well as her first award in the Leading actress category. The Tony Awards most-decorated performer in 2014 was Billie Holiday, who she was on stage in Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill. It's exactly the role she portrayed during her performance in 2017's West End London debut for which she was considered for nomination to an Olivier Award. Along with setting the record for most awards won by actors in competition, she also became the first actor to be awarded awards across all four categories. McDonald's other theater credits include The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) which marked the release of her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut, the show Shuffle Along or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed (2016) Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2019) as well as Ohio State Murders (2023). It was the Peabody Award-winning CBS show Having Our Say The Delany Sisters The First 100 Years which initially introduced McDonald to the television audience as a dramatic actress. The year 1999 saw her co-starred with Kathy Bates in ABC's acclaimed remake of Annie. She also had an occasional role in NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit in the year 2000. McDonald, who was awarded an Emmy Award nomination back in 1999 for her performance as a character in an HBO remake of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit with Emma Thompson, made her return to the network in 2003 for the drama about politics Mister Sterling. The film was written and produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. The Bedford Diaries on the WB in early 2006 and Kidnapped, NBC. McDonald was awarded a fourth Emmy for her portrayal of Lady Day in Emerson's Bar and Grill on HBO in 2016. The Bite is a drama with six episodes based on the pandemic that was co-produced with Spectrum Originals & CBS Studios. The show featured her alongside Taylor Schilling & Steven Pasquale. In 2009, she portrayed U.S. Attorney Liz Lawrence on CBS's drama about lawyers The Good Wife. In the year 2018, McDonald reprised her role as Liz Reddick as a regular on Paramount+'s The Good Fight. She got three Critics Choice Award nods for this performance. She is currently appearing as a guest on Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age, which is telecast on HBO.