Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unmatched in her range and the versatility of her artistry as both a singer and an actor. She was the recipient of a record breaking six 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 awarded with the National Medal of Arts - the highest prize for artistic achievement in America for artistic achievement - from President Barack Obama. Blessed with a luminous soprano, and an unrivalled talent for dramatic truth-telling, she is as much comfortable on Broadway and the opera stage as in her film and television roles. Alongside her stage work, she has an active career as a recording and concert artist. She performs regularly in the best venues of the world. McDonald was brought up within Fresno California by her musical parents. She studied classical music at the Juilliard School, New York. The year 1994 was the year after she graduated from Juilliard School, McDonald won the Tony Award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a musical" for her performance in Carousel. The next four years she received two additional Tony Awards in the featured actress category for her performance in The Broadway premieres of Terrence McNally's play Master Class (1996) and the Musical Ragtime (1998) giving her the record-breaking total of three Tony Awards before the age of 30. The year 2004, she received her fourth Tony for her role in the musical that she portrayed alongside Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun. Then in 2012, when she was a leading actress for the role of Porgy and Bess in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess she won her fifth Tony and was awarded the first prize in the lead actor category. When she won the sixth Tony Award in 2014, her performance of the role Lady Day in Emerson's Bar & Grill has become Broadway's most decorated show. In 2017, she performed in her West End London West End debut, and was nominated to receive the Olivier Award. The first actor to be recognized in all four acting categories, McDonald also broke the record for the amount of awards an actor has received. McDonald has also appeared in The Secret Garden (1993), Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV (2004), 110 in the Shade (2007 Twelfth night (2009) and Shuffle Along the Making of the Musical Shock in 1921 as well as Everything That Followed (2016). She made her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut with Twelfth Nacht (2009). McDonald was introduced to the public via television for her dramatic performance in Peabody Award winning CBS's Having Our Say the Delany Sisters first 100 years. She appeared on the show in 1999. co-starred alongside Kathy Bates in ABC's acclaimed remake of Annie. Also, she had an occasional role in NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit in 2000. The following year, she received her first Emmy award for her performance in the HBO film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit written by Mike Nichols and starring Emma Thompson McDonald returned to television networks in 2003 on the drama about politics Mister Sterling, produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. and featuring Josh Brolin. The Bedford Diaries on the WB in early 2006 and Kidnapped, NBC. McDonald's performance in the HBO film Lady Day At Emerson Bar Restaurant earned the actress a fourth Emmy nomination in 2016. In 2021, she appeared in a telecast with Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in the film The Bite, a pandemic film produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios. She first appeared on the show as U.S. attorney Liz Lawrence in the year 2009 on CBS's legal comedy The Good Wife in 2018 McDonald returned to the part (now named Liz Reddick) as a season regular of The Good Fight on Paramount+ with three Critics Choice Award nominations for her performance. The actress also appeared in Julian Fellowes historical drama The Gilded Age.