Audra Mc Donald

Audra is an artist who stands out because of her range and range of her skills as a performer and songwriter. Audra McDonald, winner of six Tony Awards in a row and two Grammy Awards in 2015 was named as one of Times magazine's 100 most influential people. The president Barack Obama also awarded her the National Medal of Arts -the nation's most prestigious award for achievements in this field. A luminous soprano with an extraordinary talent for dramatic truth-telling She is equally as at ease in Broadway and on the opera stage as in her film and television roles. In addition to the stage roles, McDonald has established a successful career which is a major recording and concert career. She frequently performs in world-class performances. McDonald is from Fresno California, where she was raised by a family that included musicians. At the Juilliard School in New York City, McDonald received training as an classical vocalist. In 1994, a year after she graduated from Juilliard School, McDonald was awarded the Tony Award for "Best Performance of a Leading Actress the Musical" for her performance in Carousel. The following four years, she received two additional Tony Awards as a featured actor on Terrence Mcnally's Broadway debuts Master Class (1996) and Ragtime (1998). Her total number of Tony Awards is unprecedented at three prior to the age of thirty. In 2004, she took home her fourth Tony acting alongside Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun and in 2012, she took home her fifth Tony Award, and her first win in the lead actress category for her performance as the title character in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. The Tony Awards' most decorated performer, she was able to set Broadway history when she was awarded her sixth Tony Award for the role of Billie Holiday as Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. This role also provided the platform to make her Olivier Award nominee 2017 London West End debut. First actor recognized in all four category of acting, McDonald beat the record in the number of awards an actor has been awarded. McDonald is also featured in The Secret Garden (1993), Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV (2004) and 110 In The Shade (2007 Twelfth night (2009) and the musical Shuffle Along Shuffle Along: The Making of the Musical Shock of 1921 and All That Followed (2016). McDonald was the first to make her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut with Twelfth Night (2009). McDonald was first seen on TV as a dramatic actor on The Peabody Award winner CBS series Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters' First 100 years. In 1999, she starred along with 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 2000. McDonald received the first Emmy for her performance in The HBO version of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Wit directed by Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson. In 2003, she was back on television but this time on Mister Sterling produced by Emmy Award-winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., starring Josh Brolin. The Bedford Diaries on the WB at the beginning of 2006, and Kidnapped, NBC. McDonald was awarded an fourth Emmy nomination for her part in HBO's special film of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill in 2016. She also appeared in 2021 when she was a co-star with Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in the film The Bite, a pandemic drama co-produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios. McDonald initially played U.S. lawyer Liz Lawrence (now Liz Reddick), in CBS's law-and-order action thriller The Good Wife, in the year 2009. In the year 2018, she returned to that role in The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a series regular. Her performance received three Critics Choice Award Nominations. The actress is currently a guest on Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age on HBO.