Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unmatched in her range and the versatility of her talent as an actress and a performer. In 2015, she won an all-time record of seven Tony Awards as well as two Grammy Awards and the Emmy Award. Her work was recognized in Time magazine among the 100 most influential individuals and awarded the National Medal of Arts - the most prestigious honor in America in recognition of artistic excellence and achievement - by the president Barack Obama. A dazzling soprano, and an unrivalled talent for telling dramatic truths She is equally comfortable on Broadway and the opera on stage as she is in film and TV role. In addition to her work in the theatre, she has a thriving career as a recording artist, regularly performing at world's foremost venues. McDonald was born into a musically inclined household in Fresno, CA. She underwent classical vocal training at the Juilliard School of New York. The following year, after graduation, she was awarded her debut Tony Award for Best Performance of a Featured Actress an Musical for Carousel at the Lincoln Center Theater (1994). The next four years she received two additional Tony Awards in the featured actress category for her performances in the Broadway premieres of Terrence McNally's production Master Class (1996) and the show Ragtime (1998) creating an incredible total of three Tony Awards before the age of thirty. In 2004, she received her fourth Tony in the role of Sean Diddy Combs in A Raisin in the Sun and in 2012 she received her fifth--and her first for the category of leading actress for her title role performance in The Gershwins Porgy and Bess. She is the Tony Awards' most decorated performer, she had the chance to make Broadway history when she received the sixth Tony Award playing Billie Holiday as Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill. This part also gave her the opportunity to perform to make her Olivier Award nominee 2017 London West End debut. Also, she broke the record for most awards won by an actor. McDonald has also appeared on The Secret Garden (1993), Marie Christine (1999), Henry IV (2004) and 110 in the Shade (2007 Twelfth night (2009) and the film Shuffle Along A Musical Shock Story: Making of the Musical Shock in 1921 as well as Everything That Followed (2016). McDonald was the first actress to win awards across every one of the acting categories. The Peabody Award-winning CBS program Having Our Say The Delany Sisters The First 100 years that was the first to introduce McDonald to the television audience for her performance as a dramatic actor. She went on to co-star with Kathy Bates and Victor Garber in the lauded 1999 remake by ABC and Disney of Annie as well as in 2000, she played a regular role on NBC's popular series Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald, who won an Emmy Award nomination for 1999 for her work on the HBO adaption of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit starring Emma Thompson, was back on network TV in 2003 on the political drama Mister Sterling. The film was produced by Emmy Award-winning Lawrence O'Donnell Jr. Then, in the beginning of 2006, she joined in the ensemble of the The Bedford Diaries on the WB. The Bedford Diaries and over her next season, she appeared in the role of a regular on NBC's TV show Kidnapped. McDonald got a fourth Emmy nomination in her part in HBO's special film of Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, in 2016. In 2021, she starred alongside Taylor Schilling and Steven Pasquale as part of The Bite, a pandemic film produced by Spectrum Originals and CBS Studios. In 2009, she portrayed U.S. Attorney Liz Lawrence on CBS's legal drama The Good Wife. In 2018, McDonald took on the role of Liz Reddick as a regular on Paramount+'s The Good Fight. She received three Critics Choice Award nods for this performance. The actress is currently a guest on Julian Fellowes's historical comedy The Gilded Age on HBO.