Audra Mc Donald

Audra Mcdonald is a singular performer in the range and variety of her talent as an actor and singer. The winner of a record-breaking six Tony Awards two Grammy Awards and the Emmy Award in 2015 she was ranked among the top 100 influential individuals and was awarded the National Medal of Arts--America's highest honor for achievement in the field--from the President Barack Obama. Her talents are equally at home in film, television as well as Broadway. Her stunning soprano is a perfect fit for the stage. In addition to her theatre job, she is also pursuing many facets of her career, including recording and concert artist. She is regularly performing in some of the top venues around the world. She was born into a musical family. McDonald was raised living in Fresno California and received her classical training at New York's Juilliard School. The first time she won a Tony Award in 1994 for the most outstanding performance by an actress who was featured in a musical called Carousel which was staged at Lincoln Center Theater. The time following she won two more Tony Awards as a featured actor of Terrence Mcnally's Broadway debuts Master Class (1996) and Ragtime (1998) and Ragtime (1998), resulting in an overall total of three Tony Awards at the age of only thirty. In 2004 she was in the running for a fourth Tony Award for her performance in A Raisin in the Sun together with Sean Diddy Combs. And in 2012, her five year old daughter received her first Tony Award in the category of Leading Actress. In that performance, she played the title role in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. In 2014, she created Broadway history by becoming one of the Tony Awards most decorated performer with the sixth Tony Award for her performance as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill the role that also served as the vehicle for her Olivier Award-nominated debut on London's West End. As well as setting the record for most competitive wins by an actor she also became the first individual to win awards in all four acting categories. Her other credits for theater includes The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) in which she made her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut, the show Shuffle Along or The Making of the Musical Sensation from 1921 along with All That Followed (2016) Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune (2019) and Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald's initial appearance as a acting on television was in the award-winning Peabody Award CBS show Having Our Say, The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. In the following years, she starred alongside Kathy Bates, Victor Garber and other actors in the highly acclaimed Disney/ABC version of Annie during 1999 McDonald was the role of a regular on NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald, who received the Emmy Award nomination in 1999 for her work on the HBO adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning film Wit starring Emma Thompson, was seen on television in 2003 on the drama about politics Mister Sterling. The film is directed by Emmy Award-winning Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. She was a part of The Bedford Diaries on the WB program The Bedford Diaries in early the year 2006. Following the season, she appeared as an NBC program Kidnapped. In the year 2016 McDonald was nominated for a fourth Emmy Award for her appearance in HBO's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, which was a film special. The actress starred with Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in The Bite a six-episode pandemic-themed show co-produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios in 2021. In 2009, she was the U.S. Attorney Liz Lawrence on CBS's drama about lawyers The Good Wife. In 2018 McDonald returned to her role as Liz Reddick as a regular on Paramount's The Good Fight. She got three Critics Choice Award nods for her performance. She also appeared as a guest on Julian Fellowes' historical thriller The Gilded Age.