Audra Mc Donald

Audra is a unique artist because of her range and diversity of her talents as a performer and song writer. She was the recipient of record-breaking 6 Tony Awards two Grammy Awards and an Emmy Award in 2015 she was ranked among Time magazine's 100 most influential people and received the National Medal of Art, which is America's highest honor for achievement in the field--from the President Barack Obama. Blessed with a luminous soprano, and an unrivalled talent of telling the truth in a dramatic manner She is equally as at ease on Broadway as well as on the scene as she is in her role in television and film. Her career has been successful as a recording artist and concert performer performing regularly in some of the most prestigious venues around the globe. McDonald, who was born in Fresno California to a music family, received the classical vocal training she received at New York's Juilliard School. In 1994, just a few years following her graduation from Juilliard School, McDonald was awarded the Tony Award for "Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical" for Carousel. In the subsequent four years, she also received two more Tony Awards under the featured actress category. These were in recognition of her Broadway productions of Terrence McGally's play Master Class and Ragtime. In 2004, she was nominated to win her 4th Tony Award, starring in A Raisin in the Sun alongside Sean Diddy Combs. And in 2012, her fifth Tony and first award in the category Leading Actress was awarded to her for her portrayal as the title character in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. One of the Tony Awards most-decorated performer in 2014 was Billie Holiday, who she was on stage in Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill. It's the same role she played during her performance in 2017's West End London debut for in which she's been nominated for an Olivier Award. Aside from setting a record in the competition in which she won the most Tony Awards by actor, she was the first woman to be awarded each of the four categories for acting. Her other credits for theater are The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) that marked the release of 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 made her TV debut in the award-winning Peabody Award winning CBS series Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters's First 100 Years. Her next appearance was that of a character actor on the NBC show Law & Order Special Victims Unit and she starred alongside Kathy Bates and Victor Garber. McDonald, who was awarded an Emmy Award nomination in 1999, for her role in the HBO adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize-winning film Wit which was written and performed by Emma Thompson, returned to the network in 2003 for the drama on politics Mister Sterling. The film was created by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. The Bedford Diaries, a WB television series that debuted in the year 2006. She then had the privilege of playing a regular role in NBC's Kidnapped within the next year. McDonald earned a nomination for a Fourth Emmy in 2016 for her part in HBO's production of Lady Day, at Emerson's Bar & Grill. The Bite is a drama with six episodes based on the pandemic that was co-produced by Spectrum Originals & CBS Studios. She appeared in the show with Taylor Schilling & Steven Pasquale. McDonald, who first appeared in the CBS Legal drama The Good Wife as U.S. attorneys Liz Lawrence and Liz Reddick between 2009 and 2018 reprised the characters (now called Liz Reddick) in The Good Fight as a Paramount+ season regular. McDonald has been nominated for Three Critics Choice Award awards. Presently, she is a guest star in Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age, which premieres on HBO.