Audra Mc Donald

Audra Mcdonald is a standout in the range of her talents and her versatility as an actor and singer. She was the recipient of an unprecedented six Tony Awards (two Grammy Awards) as well as an Emmy Award, McDonald was named to the Time Magazine's list of 100 influential people in 2015. She also received President Barack Obama's National Medal of Arts for her work. With a stunning soprano and an incomparable gift of telling the truth in a dramatic manner, she is as much at home in Broadway and the opera stage as in her TV and film roles. She is a renowned performer performing and recording, appearing regularly at some of the most prestigious venues around the globe. McDonald, who was born in Fresno California to a music family, received her training in classical singing in New York's Juilliard School. After graduating, she was awarded the very first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured actress in an Musical for Carousel at Lincoln Center Theater (1994). In the following four years, she received two additional Tony Awards in the featured actress category, for her roles of the Broadway premier of Terrence McNally's show Master Class (1996) and the Musical Ragtime (1998) giving her the record-breaking total of three Tony Awards before the age of 30. She received her fourth Tony for her performance in the role in which she was a co-star with Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun. When she was in 2012, she was a lead actress in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess she won her fifth Tony and was awarded the first Tony Award in the best actor category. In 2014 she made Broadway history and became the Tony Awards most decorated performer when she won the sixth Tony Award in the role of Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill the role which was also the vehicle for her Olivier Award nominated performance in the 2017 season of the London's West End. Along with setting the record as the most wins in a competitive category for an actor, she also became the first actor to receive awards in each of the four types of acting. Other credits in the theater include The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) in which she made Twelfth Night (2009), which was her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut, the show Shuffle Along or the Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921 and All That Followed (2016) Frankie and Johnny in Clair de Lune (2019) and Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald's first role as a dramatic television actor was in the Peabody Award-winning CBS program Having Our Say The Delany SistersThe first 100 years. Her next role was that of a character actor in NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit and she was a part of the cast with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber. The following year, she received her debut Emmy award for her performance on the HBO film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning show Wit, directed by Mike Nichols and starring Emma Thompson McDonald returned on television network in 2003 with the drama about politics Mister Sterling, produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. and with Josh Brolin. The Bedford Diaries, a WB television show that premiered in 2006. McDonald then appeared as a recurring part on NBC's Kidnapped in the year following. McDonald was awarded a fourth Emmy for her role as Lady Day in Emerson's Bar & Grill, which aired on HBO in 2016. The Bite is a drama featuring six episodes that are based on an epidemic, produced through 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 CBS's Legal drama The Good Wife, in the year 2009. In the year 2018, she returned to the role on The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a regular in the series. She received three Critics Choice Award Nominations. She is currently appearing as a guest in Julian Fellowes' historical thriller The Gilded Age on HBO.