Audra Mc Donald

Audra Mcdonald stands out in her breadth of talent and versatility as an actor and singer. Her record-breaking success includes six Tony Awards two Grammy Awards as well as the Emmy Award in 2015 she was ranked among the 100 most influential people in Time magazine. people and received the National Medal of Arts--America's highest award for accomplishment in the field--from the president Barack Obama. She's equally comfortable on television, film as well as Broadway. Her stunning soprano makes her a natural on the stage. In addition to her work in the theater, McDonald also has an impressive profession as a musician and recording artist. McDonald grew in Fresno California, where she was raised by a clan full of musicians. At the Juilliard School in New York City, McDonald received training as a classical singer. After graduating, she received the first Tony Award as Best Performance by an Featured Artist in an Musical in the Lincoln Center Theater for Carousel (1994). In the subsequent four years, she also won another two Tony Awards under the featured actress category. They were awarded in recognition of her Broadway productions of Terrence McGally's play Master Class and Ragtime. In 2004, she took home her fourth Tony for her role as Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun and in 2012 she received her fifth--and her first in the lead actress category in the role of her lead as the title character in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. The actress made Broadway historical records in 2014 when she became the most popular Tony Award nominee. In her role in the role of Billie Holiday at Emerson's Bar & Grill as well as the role which also served to launch the career of her Olivier Award nominated debut on London's West End in 2017, was the reason she received six awards. Not only did she set records for the highest number of awards in a competition area by an actor she also became the first actor to win awards for the four acting categories. McDonald was also seen in The Secret Garden (1993), Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV (2004) as well as 110 in The Shade (2007 Twelfth night (2009) and Shuffle Along Shuffle Along: A Story of the Making of the Musical Shock of 1921 and All That Followed (2016). McDonald was the first to make her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut in Twelfth Nacht (2009). It was the Peabody Award-winning CBS program Having Our Say The Delany Sisters The First 100 Years that first introduced McDonald viewers to her talents for her performance as a dramatic actor. The next time she appeared on television was that of a character actor in NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit, in which she starred alongside 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 in which she co-starred with Josh Brolin in Mister Sterling. The actress was a part of The Bedford Diaries of the WB series The Bedford Diaries in early 2006. Following the season, she played in a role that was recurring on NBC's television show Kidnapped. McDonald's role in HBO movie Lady Day At Emerson Bar & Grill received her four times an Emmy nomination in 2016. In 2021, she appeared with Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale as part of The Bite, a pandemic drama co-produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios. McDonald appeared as U.S. prosecutor Liz Lawrence who she played in CBS's The Good Wife legal drama in 2009. She reprised this role in 2018, as season regular Liz Reddick in Paramount+'s The Good Fight. For her performance, McDonald received three Critics Choice Award nominated. She guest stars in Julian Fellowes historical drama The Gilded Age.