Audra Mc Donald

Audra McDonald is unrivaled in her range and the versatility of her artistry as both actor and singer. She has been a six-time record winner from her Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards as well as the Emmy Award she received in 2015 from Barack Obama. She's equally comfortable on television, film as well as Broadway. Her stunning soprano makes her a natural on the stage. Her career has been successful as a recording artist and concert performer and regularly performs at some of the most prestigious performances around the world. She was born into a musical family. McDonald was raised within Fresno California and received her classical vocal training at New York's Juilliard School. Following her graduation, she was awarded her first Tony Award as Best Performance by an Featured Artist in an Musical in the Lincoln Center Theater for Carousel (1994). Over the next four years, she won two additional Tony Awards as a featured actor for her performances on Terrence Mcnally's Broadway debuts Master Class (1996) and Ragtime (1998). Her total of Tony Awards is unprecedented at three prior to the age of 30. In 2004, she took home her 4th Tony by starring in A Raisin in the Sun alongside Sean Diddy Combs. Then in 2013, she brought her fifth Tony as well as her first in the leading actress category. In 2014, the Tony Awards most-decorated performer in 2014 was Billie Holiday, who she was as the title character in Lady Day At Emerson's Bar & Grill. This is exactly the role she portrayed in her 2017 West End London debut for which she was nominated for an Olivier Award. Along with recording the record for the highest number of performances that an actor has won in a competition she was also the first actor to be awarded the award for all four categories of acting. Her other credits for theater include The Secret Garden (1993) Marie Christine (1999) Henry IV (2004) 110 in the Shade (2007) Twelfth Night (2009) which marked the release of her Public Theater Shakespeare in the Park debut show, Shuffle Along or The Making of the Musical Sensation of 1921, and all That Followed (2016) Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune (2019) and Ohio State Murders (2023). McDonald made her television debut in the Peabody Award-winning CBS drama Having Our Say - The Delany Sisters' First Hundred Years. Then, in 1999 she costarred alongside Kathy Bates and Victor Garber in the television adaptation of Disney/ABC of Annie. Then, in 2000, she appeared as a regular role in NBC's well-known show Law & Order Special Victims Unit. McDonald received her first Emmy for her performance in the HBO adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play Wit directed by Mike Nichols, starring Emma Thompson. In 2003, she was back on the screen, this time with Mister Sterling produced by Emmy Award-winning Lawrence O'Donnell Jr., starring Josh Brolin. The Bedford Diaries, a WB TV show, debuted in 2006. She then had the privilege of playing a regular role in NBC's Kidnapped within the next year. In 2016, McDonald was nominated for a fourth Emmy award for her performance in HBO's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill, a film-special. The Bite will be a 6-episode drama focusing on a deadly pandemic that will be produced with Spectrum Originals, CBS Studios and Taylor Schilling in 2021. McDonald was first seen in the CBS show The Good Wife as a legal actress The Good Wife as U.S. attorneys Liz Lawrence and Liz Reddick between 2009 and 2018 reprised the roles (now known as Liz Reddick) in The Good Fight as an Paramount+ season regular. McDonald received nominations for Three Critics Choice Award awards. The actress is currently appearing as a guest on Julian Fellowes' historical drama The Gilded Age, which premieres on HBO.