Audra Mc Donald

Audra's versatility and breadth as an artist is second to none. Audra has been awarded seven Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy Award. The winner of a record-breaking 6 Tony Awards two Grammy Awards as well as an Emmy Award in 2015 she was ranked among the 100 most influential people in Time magazine. people and received the National Medal of Arts, America's highest honor for achievement in the arts--from the president Barack Obama. With a soprano of unmatched elegance and an aptitude for dramatizing truth the roles she plays in Broadway or the opera stage are just as easy as the roles in movies or on television. Aside from her theater work she also enjoys a thriving career as an international music and concert performer. McDonald is from Fresno California, where she was raised by a family of musicians. In the Juilliard School in New York City, McDonald received training as an classical vocalist. In 1994, just a few years after she graduated from Juilliard School, she won the Tony Award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actress in musical" for Carousel. Over the next four years, she was awarded two more Tony Awards as a featured actor as a featured actress in Terrence Mcnally's Broadway debuts Master Class (1996) and Ragtime (1998). She has a total number of Tony Awards is unprecedented at 3 before the age of thirty. In 2004, she won her fourth Tony for her role in the musical in which she was a co-star with Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun. When she was in 2012, she was a leading actress in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess she received five Tony and won the first Tony Award in the best actor category. The year 2014 saw her make Broadway history, becoming an official Tony Awards most decorated performer when she won the sixth Tony Award in the role of Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill the role which was also the stage for her Olivier Award-nominated performance in the 2017 season of the London's West End. Along with setting the record as the most wins in a competitive category for an actor, she also became the first person ever to win awards for the four acting categories. McDonald has also been featured in other theatre productions, including The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV 2004 110 in the Shade (2006) Twelfth Nigh (2009); this was her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut shuffle Along Or The Making of the Musical Sense of 1921 And All That Followed (16) Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune (192019) as well as Ohio State Murders (2023) McDonald made her TV debut in the award-winning Peabody Award winning CBS series Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters's First 100 years. After starring with Kathy Bates, Victor Garber and other actors in the highly popular Disney/ABC remake of Annie in 1999, McDonald had a recurring character on the network's Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald was awarded her first Emmy for her performance on 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 on Mister Sterling produced by Emmy Award-winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., with Josh Brolin. In 2006, McDonald appeared on WB's The Bedford Diaries. The next year she was a recurring actor on NBC's Kidnapped. McDonald won a 4th Emmy for her performance as Lady Day in Emerson's Bar & Grill on HBO in 2016. In 2021, she was a co-star alongside Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale as part of The Bite, a pandemic drama that was co-produced between Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios. McDonald, who first appeared in The Good Wife, a CBS legal drama The Good Wife as U.S. attorneys Liz Lawrence and Liz Reddick from 2009 until 2018. She reprised her roles (now known as Liz Reddick) in The Good Fight as an Paramount+ season regular. McDonald received nominations for three Critics Choice Award awards. She is currently appearing as a guest in Julian Fellowes's historical drama The Gilded Age on HBO.