Audra Mc Donald

Audra Mcdonald is a unique artist because of her versatility and range of her abilities as an actress and a vocalist. The winner of a record-breaking Six Tony Awards two Grammy Awards and one Emmy Award in 2015 she was named one of the 100 most influential people in Time magazine. individuals. She was also awarded the National Medal of Arts--America's most prestigious award for excellence in this field -- from the President Barack Obama. She is blessed with a beautiful soprano, and an unrivalled talent for telling dramatic truths the actress is just as at ease on Broadway as well as on the scene as she is in her film or television roles. Alongside her stage performances, she also has worked as a recording and concert artist. She performs regularly in the best venues of the world. McDonald was born to a family with a strong musical background in Fresno, California. She received classical vocal education at The Juilliard School of New York. After graduating, she received her very first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for Carousel at the Lincoln Center Theater (1994). The next four years she was awarded two more Tony Awards in the featured actress category for her performances in both the Broadway productions Terrence McNally's show Master Class (1996) and his musical Ragtime (1998) giving her the record-breaking total of three Tony Awards before the age of 30. In 2004, she was nominated for a fourth Tony Award, starring in A Raisin in the Sun together with Sean Diddy Combs. And in 2012, her five-year-old daughter was awarded her first Tony for her performance in the category of Leading Actress when she played the title role as Porgy and Bess in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. She made Broadway history when she was named the highest-rated Tony Award performer. In her role as Billie Holiday at Emerson's Bar & Grill, the role that was also the catalyst for her Olivier Award nominated debut on London's West End in 2017, was her sixth Tony Award. In addition, she set the record for most prizes won by an actor. Her other credits for theater are 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 Clair de Lune (2019) as well as Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald was first introduced to the television audience as a dramatic actress by Peabody Award winning CBS's Having Our Say"The Delany Sisters first 100 years. The year 1999 saw her appeared alongside Kathy Bates in ABC's acclaimed remake of Annie. In addition, she played a recurring part in NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit in the year 2000. McDonald received her first Emmy for her part in The HBO remake of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Wit written by Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson. In 2003 she was back on television, but this time she was in Mister Sterling produced by Emmy Award-winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., which starred Josh Brolin. Then, in the year 2006, she joined WB's The Bedford Diaries. The following year, she appeared as an actor who appeared on NBC's Kidnapped. McDonald got a fourth Emmy nomination for her part in the HBO film special Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill in the year 2016. She starred alongside Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in The Bite a six-episode pandemic-themed show co-produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios in 2021. McDonald first played U.S. lawyer Liz Lawrence (now Liz Reddick), in the CBS drama, a legal-themed action thriller The Good Wife, in 2009. In 2018, she returned to the role on The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a series regular. Her performance received three Critics Choice Award Nominations. Presently, she is an actor in Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age, which premieres on HBO.