Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unmatched in her range and the versatility of her talent as a singer and an actor. She was the recipient of an all-time record of six Tony Awards as well as two Grammy Awards and the Emmy Award. In addition, she was named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people and was awarded her the National Medal of Arts - the most prestigious award for artistic achievement in America for excellence in art as awarded by President Barack Obama. Her talents are equally at home with television, film and Broadway. Her luminous soprano makes her a natural on the stage. Apart from her theater work, she has been a busy singer and concert performer. She performs regularly in some of the top venues around the world. McDonald was born in a musical family in California, Fresno. She underwent classical vocal instruction from The Juilliard School of New York. Following her graduation, she received her very first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured actress in the Musical Carousel at Lincoln Center Theater (1994). After four years she was awarded two more Tony Awards for the category of principal actress. She was in Broadway premieres Terrence McNally's musical Ragtime and Terrence McNally's play Master Class in 1996. The result was an astonishing number of Tony Awards by the time she turned 30. In 2004 she won her fourth Tony acting alongside Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun and in 2012 she received her fifth--and her first in the lead actress category for her title role performance for her role in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. In her role as the Tony Awards' most decorated performer, she had the chance to create Broadway record-breaking history when she took home her sixth Tony Award playing Billie Holiday as Lady Day at the Emerson's Bar & Grill. This character also gave the stage for the Olivier Award nominee 2017 London West End debut. In addition, she set the record for most awards received by actors. McDonald was also in The Secret Garden (1993), Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV (2004) and 110 in the Shade (2007 Twelfth night (2009) and Shuffle Along: The Making of the Musical Shock of 1921 and Everything That Followed (2016). She was the first actress to receive awards in each of the four acting categories. McDonald's initial appearance as a TV actor came with the Peabody Award-winning CBS program Having Our Say, The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years. She went on to co-star with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber on the well-received 1999 TV remake from Disney/ABC of Annie and, in 2000, had a recurring role on NBC's hit series Law & Order Special Victims Unit. The following year, she received their first Emmy nomination for her performance in the HBO film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning show Wit directed by Mike Nichols and starring Emma Thompson McDonald returned to network television in 2003 in the political drama Mister Sterling, produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. and featuring Josh Brolin. She was a part of The Bedford Diaries on the WB series The Bedford Diaries in early 2006. In the following season, she starred as one of the characters on NBC's program Kidnapped. McDonald earned a fourth Emmy for her portrayal of Lady Day in Emerson's Bar and Grill, which aired on HBO in the year 2016. The Bite is a drama featuring six episodes that are based on a pandemic, coproduced with Spectrum Originals & CBS Studios. The show featured her alongside Taylor Schilling & Steven Pasquale. McDonald was first seen as U.S. lawyer Liz Lawrence (now Liz Reddick), in the CBS legal crime thriller The Good Wife, in 2009. In 2018 she reprised that role in The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a regular on the series. The performance earned her three Critics Choice Award Nominations. She is currently in the role of a guest star on Julian Fellowes's historical drama The Gilded Age on HBO.