Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald's talents are unrivaled by her variety and breadth as a vocalist, and an actor. Audra McDonald, winner of Six Tony Awards in a row and two Grammy Awards in 2015 was named as one of Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People. President Barack Obama also awarded her the National Medal of Arts -- America's highest honour for achievements in this field. A dazzling soprano and an incomparable gift for dramatic truth-telling She is equally at ease on Broadway and on the opera stage as she is in films and TV role. She is an accomplished performer in concert and recording, appearing regularly at some of the most prestigious venues around the globe. McDonald was born in a musical family in Fresno, CA. She received classical vocal training at The Juilliard School of New York. The first time she won a Tony Award in 1994 for the top performance of an Actress in a show for Carousel in the Lincoln Center Theater. The following four years, she took home two additional Tony Awards for the category of the featured actress. She was in Broadway premieres Terrence McNally's musical Ragtime and Terrence McNally's play Master Class in 1996. It was an amazing number of Tony Awards by the time she reached the age of thirty. In 2004 she was in the running for a fourth Tony Award. She was in the role of A Raisin in the Sun with Sean Diddy Combs. And in 2012, her five year old daughter took home her first Tony in the category of Leading Actress. In that performance, she was the main character of The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. The actress made Broadway the history books in 2014 as she became the most decorated Tony Award winner. The role she played 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. Additionally, she set the record for the most competitive wins by an actor she was also the first actor to be awarded the award in the four categories of acting. McDonald's other theater credits includes The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) the film that was Twelfth Night (2009), which was her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut film, Shuffle Along or The Making of the Musical Sensation from 1921 along with All That Followed (2016) Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2019) and Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald was first introduced to the public via television as a dramatic actor in Peabody Award winning CBS's Having Our Say:"The Delany Sisters first 100 years. She went on to co-star alongside Kathy Bates and Victor Garber in the lauded 1999 TV remake from Disney/ABC of Annie as well as in 2000, she had a recurring role on NBC's popular series Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald, who won an Emmy Award nomination in 1999, for her role on the HBO version of Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit featuring Emma Thompson was seen again on TV networks in 2003, starring on the drama about politics Mister Sterling. The film is produced by Emmy Award-winning Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. In 2006, McDonald joined the WB's The Bedford Diaries. The next year she was a recurring actor on NBC's Kidnapped. In the year 2016 McDonald received a nomination for a fourth Emmy Award due to her performance on HBO's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, which was a film special. In 2021, she was a co-star along with Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in the film The Bite, a pandemic drama co-produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios. She starred in 2009 as U.S. Attorney Liz Lawrence on CBS's legal drama The Good Wife. In 2018, McDonald returned to her role as Liz Reddick as a regular on Paramount's The Good Fight. She earned three Critics Choice Award nods for the role. She also appeared as a guest on Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age.