Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald's artistic talent is unparalleled in its breadth and diversity in her roles as a performer, singer as well as an actor. In 2015, she won an all-time record of Six Tony Awards as well as two Grammy Awards and the Emmy Award. In addition, she was recognized by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people, and she was also awarded her the National Medal of Arts - the most prestigious award in America for excellence in art and achievement - by the president Barack Obama. She is equally at home in film, television as well as Broadway. Her beautiful soprano is a perfect fit for the stage. Alongside her theatrical work she has a thriving career in the field of recording and concert performer who regularly appears at most prestigious venues in the world. The daughter of a musician family McDonald grew up within Fresno California and received her training in classical singing at the New York's Juilliard School. She won her first Tony Award in 1994 for the Best Performance of an actress who was featured in a show for Carousel in the Lincoln Center Theater. The next four years she was awarded two more Tony Awards in the featured actress category for her work during performances in the Broadway productions Terrence McNally's show Master Class (1996) and his Musical Ragtime (1998) which gave her an unprecedented total of three Tony Awards before the age of thirty. In 2004 she won her fourth Tony in the role of Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun and in 2012 she received the fifth time and first time in the lead actress category for her title role performance for her role in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. She is the Tony Awards' most decorated actress, she was able to establish Broadway history when she received her sixth Tony Award acting in Billie Holiday as Lady Day in Emerson's Bar & Grill. This role also provided the platform for the Olivier Award nominee 2017 London West End debut. In addition to setting an all-time record for the amount of Tony Awards an actor has received, she also became the first ever to win each of the 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: A Musical Shock Story: Making of the Musical Shock in 1921 as well as Everything That Followed (2016). The actress was the first to be awarded in every one of the acting categories. McDonald's first appearance as a dramatic acting on television was in the Peabody Award-winning CBS series Having Our Say, The Delany Sisters' First 100 years. She appeared on the show in 1999. appeared with Kathy Bates in ABC's acclaimed remake of Annie. In addition, she played a recurring part in NBC's Law & Order Special Victims Unit in 2000. McDonald received her first Emmy due to her character in The HBO versions of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Wit directed by Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson. In 2003 she was back on television, this time in Mister Sterling produced by Emmy Award winner Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., featuring Josh Brolin. The actress joined the WB show The Bedford Diaries in early the year 2006. In the following season, she appeared as an NBC TV show Kidnapped. McDonald was awarded a 4th Emmy for her performance as Lady Day in Emerson's Bar and Grill on HBO in the year 2016. In 2021 she co-starred with Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale in The Bite, a pandemic film produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios. McDonald initially played U.S. lawyer Liz Lawrence (now Liz Reddick), in the CBS legal drama The Good Wife, in the year 2009. In 2018 she reprised that role in The Good Fight for Paramount+ as a regular on the series. She received three Critics Choice Award Nominations. She is currently acting as a guest in Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age, which airs on HBO.