Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unrivaled in the range and variety of her artistry as both an actress and a performer. The winner of a record-breaking 6 Tony Awards (two Grammy Awards) as well as an Emmy Award, McDonald was named to the Time Magazine's list of 100 people who are influential in 2015. In addition, she was awarded President Barack Obama's National Medal of Arts for her achievements. An enthralling singer who has an extraordinary gift for dramatically telling the truth, Ms. O'Connor can be found performing on Broadway as well as the stage of opera and on the world of television. In addition to her work in the theatre, she maintains a major career as a concert and recording artist regularly appearing at the top venues around the globe. She was born into a musical family. McDonald was raised living in Fresno California and received her classical vocal training at New York's Juilliard School. After graduating, she was awarded the first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in an Musical for Carousel at the Lincoln Center Theater (1994). Over the next four years she was awarded two Tony Awards under the featured actress category. These were in recognition of her Broadway performance in Terrence McGally's play Master Class and Ragtime. In 2004, she won the fourth Tony for the role she played alongside Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun. Then in 2012, when she was the lead actress on stage in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess she received her fifth Tony and won the first award in the leading actor category. In her role as the Tony Awards' most decorated actor, she managed to create Broadway historical records when she won her sixth Tony Award for the role of Billie Holiday as Lady Day in Emerson's Bar & Grill. This part also gave her the opportunity for her Olivier Award nominee 2017 London West End debut. Along with making history with the most awards won by actors in competition, she was also the first person to receive the award in all four acting categories. Her other credits for theater include The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) that marked the release of her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut show, Shuffle Along or the Making of the Musical Sensation in 1921 as well as All That Followed (2016) Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune (2019) and Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald's debut as a dramatic actor on television was with the Peabody Award-winning CBS series Having Our Say The Delany Sistersthe first 100 years. After that, in 1999, she appeared alongside Kathy Bates and Victor Garber in the television adaptation of Disney/ABC of Annie. And in 2000, she appeared as an recurring role on the NBC show Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald received the first Emmy for her performance on the HBO adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Wit directed by Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson. In 2003, she was back on the screen, this time with Mister Sterling produced by Emmy Award-winning Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., with Josh Brolin. Then, in the beginning of 2006, she joined the cast of the The Bedford Diaries on the WB. The Bedford Diaries and over the following season, she played a recurring role on the television series of NBC, Kidnapped. McDonald received a nomination for a fourth Emmy in 2016, for her role in HBO's film in the series Lady Day, at Emerson's Bar & Grill. The Bite was a six episodes pandemic-themed drama created by Spectrum Originals in collaboration with CBS Studios. Having first appeared as U.S. attorney Liz Lawrence in the year 2009 on CBS's legal drama The Good Wife in 2018 McDonald reprised the character (now called Liz Reddick) as a season-long regular on The Good Fight on Paramount+ getting the three Critics Choice Award nominations for her role. She currently guest-stars in Julian Fellowes' historical thriller The Gilded Age on HBO.