Audra Mc Donald

Audra Mcdonald is unique in the range of her talents and versatility as a singer and actor. Her record-breaking success includes seven Tony Awards two Grammy Awards and one Emmy Award in 2015 she was ranked among Time magazine's 100 most influential people. She also received the National Medal of Arts--America's highest award for accomplishment in the field--from the President Barack Obama. She is equally at home on television, film and Broadway. The luminous tone of her voice will make her an ideal performer on the stage. She has a successful career as a recording artist and concert performer, appearing regularly at several of the most famous performances around the world. McDonald was brought up in Fresno California by her musical parents and studied classical singing at the Juilliard School, New York. A year after graduating she won her debut Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Carousel at Lincoln Center Theater (1994). In the following four years, acting in Broadway's most acclaimed productions, Master Class by Terrence M. McNally (1996) as well as Ragtime (1998), she earned two additional Tony Awards. She was awarded her 4th Tony for her role in the musical that she portrayed alongside Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun. Then in 2012, when she was the lead actor on stage in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess she won the fifth Tony and was awarded the first prize in the lead actor category. As the Tony Awards' most decorated actor, she managed to create Broadway history when she was awarded her sixth Tony Award playing Billie Holiday as Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. This performance also served as the basis to make her Olivier Award nominee 2017 London West End debut. She also set the record for having the most awards received by a single actor. Her theater credits comprise The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (99) Henry IV (2007) 110 in the Shade (2008) Twelfth (2009) Twelfth (2009), the Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park premiere, which was the first time she performed in Shuffle Along or the Making of the Musical sensation of 1921 & All That Followed (2017) Frankie & Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2018) and Ohio State Murders 2023. McDonald was first seen on television in the award-winning Peabody Award winning CBS drama Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters' First Hundred Years. After starring with Kathy Bates, Victor Garber and others in the popular Disney/ABC remake of Annie in 1999, McDonald was an recurring role in the NBC show Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald's first Emmy was awarded for her performance in the HBO film version of the The Pulitzer Prize-winning Wit. The film was directed by Mike Nichols with Emma Thompson as the main character the actress returned to television networks in 2003. She starred in Mister Sterling and produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. The Bedford Diaries, a WB television show that premiered in the year 2006. Then she had the privilege of playing a regular role in NBC's Kidnapped within the next year. In 2016, McDonald was nominated for a fourth Emmy Awards for her role in HBO's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar Restaurant & Grill, a movie-special. She starred alongside Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in The Bite a six-episode pandemic-themed drama co-produced through Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios in 2021. McDonald initially played U.S. lawyer Liz Lawrence (now Liz Reddick), in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife, in 2009. In 2018, she recast that role in The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a regular in the series. She received three Critics Choice Award Nominations. She appears as a special guest for HBO's The Gilded Age by Julian Fellowes.