Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unrivaled in her range and the versatility of her talents as actor and singer. In 2015, she was awarded record-breaking 6 Tony Awards as well as two Grammy Awards and Emmy Awards. She was also named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people and was given an award called the National Medal of Arts - the top honor for artistic achievement in America in recognition of artistic excellence and achievement - by the president Barack Obama. Because of her beautiful tone, and her unrivaled ability of telling compelling stories her success has been evident in Broadway as well as at the opera, as well as in both film and television. Aside from her theater work, McDonald also has established a successful career as an international music and concert performer. McDonald was raised in a musically inclined family in Fresno, CA. She was a classical singer who received instruction from her school, the Juilliard School of New York. One year after graduation McDonald was awarded her Tony Award Best Performance for the Lead Actress of a Musical for her performance in Carousel at Lincoln Center Theater. Over the next four years, she received two more Tony Awards as a featured actor for her performances as a featured actress in Terrence Mcnally's Broadway debuts Master Class (1996) and Ragtime (1998). Her total of Tony Awards is unprecedented at 3 before the age of thirty. In 2004, she received her fourth Tony for the role she played alongside Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun. When she was in 2012, she was a leading actress on stage in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess she earned the fifth Tony and was awarded the first Tony Award in the best actor category. As the Tony Awards' most decorated actor, she managed to set Broadway history when she received her sixth Tony Award for portraying Billie Holiday as Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. This performance also served as the basis for the Olivier Award nominee 2017 London West End debut. Along with setting the record in the competition in which she won the most Tony Awards by acting performance, she also became the first woman to be awarded all four acting categories. Her other credits for theater are The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) that marked Twelfth Night (2009), which was her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut, the 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). It was the Peabody Award-winning CBS program Having Our Say The Delany Sisters The First 100 Years that was the first to introduce McDonald to the television audience for her performance as a dramatic actor. After that, in 1999, she costarred alongside Kathy Bates and Victor Garber on the Disney/ABC television version of Annie. And in 2000, she played an recurring role on the NBC program Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald, who earned an Emmy Award nomination in 1999 for her work on the HBO version of Pulitzer Prize-winning film Wit directed and starring Emma Thompson, returned to the network in 2003 to star in the political drama Mister Sterling. The film was created by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. The Bedford Diaries on the WB in the early part of 2006 as well as Kidnapped, NBC. McDonald was awarded the fourth Emmy nomination in recognition of her role in HBO's film special of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill in 2016. The Bite will be a 6-episode drama focusing on a deadly pandemic that will be produced with Spectrum Originals, CBS Studios and Taylor Schilling in 2021. Having first appeared in the role of U.S. attorney Liz Lawrence in 2009 on CBS's medical comedy The Good Wife in 2018 McDonald returned to the part (now known as Liz Reddick) as a season-long regular on The Good Fight on Paramount+ with the three Critics Choice Award nominations for her role. McDonald guest-stars on Julian Fellowes historical drama The Gilded Age.