Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unparalleled in her range and the versatility of her talents as an actress and a performer. She has been a six-time record recipient from the Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy Award she received in 2015 from Barack Obama. Because of her stunning soprano's tone and unsurpassed gift of telling dramatic tales She has had success on Broadway and at the opera and for television and film. Aside from her theater work McDonald has also a thriving profession as a musician and recording artist. McDonald was brought up in Fresno California by her musical parents and studied classical singing in the Juilliard School, New York. The year 1994 was the year after she graduated from Juilliard School, McDonald won the Tony Award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actress in Musical" for Carousel. Over the next four years she was awarded two additional Tony Awards for the category of featured actress. She was in Broadway premier productions of Terrence McNally's musical Ragtime as well as Terrence McNally's show Master Class in 1996. This was an incredible total of three Tony Awards by the time she was 30. In 2004 she was nominated to win her 4th Tony Award, starring in A Raisin in the Sun together with Sean Diddy Combs. And in 2012, her 5th Tony as well as her first win in the Leading Actress category was awarded to her for her portrayal as the titular character in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. As the Tony Awards' most decorated performer, she was able to set Broadway historical records when she won the sixth Tony Award the role of Billie Holiday as Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. This role also provided the platform to make her Olivier Award nominee 2017 London West End debut. The actress also broke the record for the winning the most Tony Awards by an actor. McDonald was also seen on The Secret Garden (1993), Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV (2004), 110 In the Shade (2007 Twelfth night (2009) and the musical Shuffle Along the Making of the Musical Shock of 1921 and Everything That Followed (2016). She made her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut in Twelfth Nacht (2009). The Peabody Award-winning CBS program Having Our Say The Delany Sisters First 100 Years that initially introduced McDonald viewers to her talents as a dramatic actor. Her next role was as a recurring actor in NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit where she was a part of the cast with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber. McDonald, who earned the Emmy Award nomination back in 1999 for her performance on the HBO remake of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit which was written and performed by Emma Thompson, made her return to the network in 2003 with the drama on politics Mister Sterling. The film was produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. In early 2006 she joined the cast of the WB's The Bedford Diaries and over the course of the season, she was the role of a regular on NBC's television series Kidnapped. In 2016, McDonald was nominated for the fourth Emmy Awards for her role on HBO's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill, a special film. The actress starred with Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in The Bite a six-episode pandemic-themed drama co-produced with Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios in 2021. McDonald was first seen as U.S. lawyer Liz Lawrence (now Liz Reddick), in the CBS Legal action thriller The Good Wife, in the year 2009. In 2018 she reprised that role in The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a series regular. She received three Critics Choice Award Nominations. The actress is currently a guest star in Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age, which airs on HBO.