Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald's artistry is unmatched in her range of talents and variety as a singer, and actor. Her record-breaking success includes seven Tony Awards two Grammy Awards and the Emmy Award in 2015 she was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people and received the National Medal of Arts, America's highest honor for achievement in the arts--from the president Barack Obama. With a soprano of unmatched beauty and a gift of dramatizing the truth, her roles on Broadway or in the opera are as comfortable as those in films and TV. She has a successful career in concert and recording, appearing regularly at some of the most prestigious places around the world. McDonald grew in Fresno California, where she was raised by a family full of musicians. While at the Juilliard School in New York City, McDonald received training as the classical singer. In 1994, a year after her Juilliard School, McDonald won the Tony Award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical" for her performance in Carousel. Over the next four years, she also received two more Tony Awards under the featured actress category. They were awarded in recognition of her Broadway performance in Terrence McGally's productions Master Class and Ragtime. In 2004, she was nominated for her fourth Tony Award, starring in A Raisin in the Sun with Sean Diddy Combs. And in 2012, her 5th Tony as well as her first win award in the category Leading Actress was awarded to her for her portrayal as the titular character in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. The actress made Broadway history in 2014 when she became the world's most decorated Tony Award performer. In her role in the role of Billie Holiday at Emerson's Bar & Grill as well as the role which also served to launch the career of her Olivier Award nominated debut on London's West End in 2017, was her six award. Along with making history with the most performances that an actor has won in a competition she was also the first to win 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) in which she made Twelfth Night (2009), which was 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 Clair de Lune (2019) as well as Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald made her TV debut with the award-winning Peabody Award-winning CBS series Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters's First Hundred years. In 1999, she co-starred alongside Kathy Bates in ABC's acclaimed remake of Annie. Also, she had an occasional role in NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit in 2000. McDonald, who received an Emmy Award nomination back in 1999 for her performance on the HBO version of Pulitzer Prize-winning film Wit directed and starring Emma Thompson, made her return to the network in 2003 for the drama on politics Mister Sterling. The film was created by Emmy Award-winning Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. Then, in the year 2006, McDonald joined the WB's The Bedford Diaries. The following year, she became an actor who appeared on NBC's Kidnapped. McDonald received a nomination for a Fourth Emmy in 2016 for her part in HBO's movie in the series Lady Day, at Emerson's Bar and Grill. The Bite was a six episode pandemic themed drama produced in collaboration with Spectrum Originals in collaboration with CBS Studios. McDonald was first seen as U.S. lawyer Liz Lawrence (now Liz Reddick), in the CBS Legal drama The Good Wife, in 2009. In the year 2018, she returned to her role on The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a series regular. Her performance received three Critics Choice Award Nominations. She's currently appearing as a guest in Julian Fellowes's historic comedy The Gilded Age.