Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unparalleled in the range and variety of her talents as an actress and a performer. She has been a six-time record winner from the Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards as well as an Emmy Award she received in 2015 from Barack Obama. An enthralling singer who has an extraordinary gift for dramatic truth telling, Ms. O'Connor can be found on Broadway and on the opera stage and in TV. She has a successful career performing and recording, appearing regularly at several of the most famous places around the world. McDonald, who was born in Fresno California to a music family, completed her classical voice training at the New York's Juilliard School. One year after graduation McDonald won the Tony Award Best Performance for an Actress in Musical Lead in Carousel in the Lincoln Center Theater. In the following four years, performing in Broadway's premieres, Master Class by Terrence M. McNally (1996) as well as Ragtime (1998), she was awarded two more Tony Awards. She won the fourth Tony in 2004 starring with Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun and at the end of 2012. In 2012, she won five Tonys, and the first award in the leading actress category for her performance on stage in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess in the lead role. The Tony Awards most-decorated performer in 2014 was Billie Holiday, who she performed in Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill. This is identical to the role she performed in her 2017 West End London debut for which she has been considered for nomination to an Olivier Award. Along with making history with the most competitive wins by an actor as well as becoming the first to win the award for all four categories of acting. Her other credits for theater include The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) in which she made the release of her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut show, Shuffle Along or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed (2016) Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2019) as well as Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald was first introduced to the TV audience as a dramatic actor in Peabody Award winning CBS's Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters first 100 years. The next time she appeared on television was that of a character actor on the NBC show Law & Order Special Victims Unit and she was a part of the cast with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber. McDonald's Emmy nominated performance as Emma Thompson in Mike Nichols' HBO film adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winner Wit was produced by Mike Nichols. McDonald's return to network television began in 2003 when she starred with Josh Brolin in Mister Sterling. The Bedford Diaries, a WB television series that debuted in 2006. She then had the privilege of playing a regular role in NBC's Kidnapped in the year following. In 2016, McDonald was nominated for the fourth Emmy award for her role as a character in HBO's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, a special film. The Bite was a six episode pandemic themed drama produced by Spectrum Originals in collaboration with CBS Studios. 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 received three Critics Choice Award nods for this performance. The actress is currently appearing as a guest on Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age, which is telecast on HBO.