Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unmatched in the range and variety of her talents as a singer and an actor. In 2015, she was awarded record-breaking 6 Tony Awards as well as two Grammy Awards and Emmy Awards. Her name was also cited by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people, and she was also awarded an award called the National Medal of Arts - the most prestigious award given in America in recognition of artistic excellence and achievement - by the president Barack Obama. She has a home on television, film and Broadway. The luminous tone of her voice is a perfect fit for the stage. Aside from her theater work, McDonald also has a thriving career as an international recording and concert artist. McDonald is from Fresno California, where she was surrounded by a large family that included musicians. While at the Juilliard School in New York City, McDonald received training as a classical singer. In 1994, a year following her graduation from Juilliard School, McDonald won the Tony Award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actress in musical" for her performance in Carousel. Over the next four years she was awarded two Tony Awards under the featured actress category. The awards were given for her Broadway performance in Terrence McGally's plays Master Class and Ragtime. In 2004, she was in the running to win her 4th Tony Award for her performance in A Raisin in the Sun together with Sean Diddy Combs. And in 2012, her fifth Tony as well as her first win in the Leading Actress category were won by her role as the titular character in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. One of the Tony Awards most-decorated performer in 2014 was Billie Holiday, who she played as the title character in Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill. It is identical to the role she performed in her 2017 West End London debut for which she has been nominated for an Olivier Award. Along with recording the record for the highest number of awards won by actors in competition, she was also the first person to receive the award across all four categories. McDonald has also appeared on 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 Everything That Followed (2016). McDonald made her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut on Twelfth Nacht (2009). McDonald was first introduced to the television audience for her dramatic performance in Peabody Award winning CBS's Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters first 100 years. Her next role was that of a regular 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 on Mike Nichols' HBO film adaptation of Pulitzer Prize winner Wit was produced by Mike Nichols. McDonald's return to the network TV screen came in 2003 when she starred with Josh Brolin in Mister Sterling. Beginning in 2006, she was part of the crew of show on WB called The Bedford Diaries and over the course of the season, she was an recurring role in the NBC television show Kidnapped. McDonald received a fourth Emmy for her role as Lady Day in Emerson's Bar & Grill on HBO in the year 2016. The Bite is a drama with six episodes based on a pandemic, coproduced by Spectrum Originals & CBS Studios. The show featured her alongside Taylor Schilling & Steven Pasquale. She first appeared on the show as U.S. attorney Liz Lawrence in 2009 on CBS's medical drama The Good Wife in 2018 McDonald reprised the character (now known as Liz Reddick) as a season-long regular on The Good Fight on Paramount+ getting three Critics Choice Award nominations for her performance. She currently guest-stars in Julian Fellowes's historical drama The Gilded Age on HBO.