Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald's talents are unmatched in its breadth and diversity in her roles as a performer, singer and performer. The winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards two Grammy Awards and an Emmy Award in 2015 she was ranked among Time magazine's top 100 influential people and received the National Medal of Arts--America's most prestigious award for excellence in the field--from President Barack Obama. She is equally at home in film, television and Broadway. Her luminous soprano is a perfect fit for the stage. Apart from her theater job, she is also pursuing an active career as a singer and a concert artist. She is regularly performing at the most prestigious venues in the world. McDonald was born in Fresno California, where she was raised by a clan full of musicians. At the Juilliard School in New York City, McDonald received training as a classical singer. After graduating, she received her first Tony Award as Best Performance by a Featured Actor in a Musical at the Lincoln Center Theater for Carousel (1994). The following four years she was awarded two Tony Awards under the featured actress category. The awards were given for her Broadway performances of Terrence McGally's productions Master Class and Ragtime. In 2004 she won her fourth Tony for her role as Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun and in 2012 she won her fifth Tony Award, and her first win in the leading actress category for her performance as the title character as the title character in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. In the year she received her sixth Tony Award in 2014, her performance in Lady Day in Emerson's Bar & Grill was Broadway's highest-rated performance. In 2017, she performed in her West End London West End debut and was nominated to receive the Olivier Award. Along with setting the record in the competition to win the most Tony Awards by actor, she was the first to have won the four categories of acting. Other credits in the theater includes The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) which marked her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut 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) and Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald first made her television debut as a character actor in her role on the Peabody Award winner CBS series Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. Then, in 1999 she costarred alongside Kathy Bates and Victor Garber on the ABC/Disney television version of Annie. In 2000, she appeared as an recurring role on the NBC series Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald, who received an Emmy Award nomination in 1999, for her role as a character in an HBO version of Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit with Emma Thompson, made her return to the network in 2003 with the drama on politics Mister Sterling. The film was written and produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. Beginning in 2006, she was part of the cast of the WB's The Bedford Diaries and over the course of the season, she was a recurring role on the NBC television show Kidnapped. In the year 2016, McDonald was nominated for the fourth Emmy Awards for her performance as a character in HBO's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, a film-special. The Bite was a six episode drama about pandemics produced in collaboration with Spectrum Originals in collaboration with CBS Studios. McDonald initially played U.S. lawyer Liz Lawrence (now Liz Reddick), in CBS's Legal drama The Good Wife, in the year 2009. In the year 2018, she returned to that role in The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a regular in the series. Her performance received three Critics Choice Award Nominations. The actress is currently acting as a guest in Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age, which airs on HBO.