Yes, of course, but I wouldn’t be able to tell you what a muse is. And as a result I am hyper-aware of… I get to a theater on time or I won’t… I mean, it’s the one thing that I refuse to do as an audience member. But if you do somehow get through that challenge, look at what you’re going to have learned, and look at what you’re going to know. Once he finished his tour of duty in Vietnam, we moved to Fresno, which is where he’s from. Audra McDonald: The fear of failure. So I’m definitely addicted to that, too. You grew up in Fresno, California, but you were actually born in Berlin, Germany. Her father, after serving as a high school teacher and principal, became assistant superintendent of human resources for the Fresno Unified School District. You began to study acting when you were very young. I was scared to death to do Bess in Porgy and Bess, and I thought I wouldn’t survive it. Do you ever worry that there’s a point where creativity stagnates? So, she was thrilled when she got to go to New York and see one of her idols, Audra McDonald, perform on Broadway in "Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill." It’s trial by error. I am standing on Maya Angelou's shoulders. She stayed with the show on its national tour before returning to Juilliard to graduate in 1993. In 2016 she was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie and a Screen Actors Guild Award for her performance in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill for HBO in which McDonald portrayed jazz legend Billie Holiday. It’s easy to spend — especially in this day and age — to spend your time not being in the present. That’s not why you do it. So you have to rely on your brain to go, “Okay, that’s not real life. She has been nominated five times for the NAACP Image Awards for her work in television and film. So I guess, no, it didn’t change my life, but outwardly it did. From that it can turn into something like, “Oh, this is something that can be a projectile. We weren’t the first ones to do that. Yeah, I equate it with death. But I have to go in and find who they are and get to their core, into their truth, and have absolute faith and believe in that, in order to portray it. How would you describe it? You know, raising children and everybody works now. And I actually find that I — and I was talking to my husband about this, who is also an actor too — that when we’re watching other shows, other Broadway shows, we feel muscle twitches. I studied opportunities that would have been available to women of that time if you didn’t have a job or a husband, and you were addicted to drugs. So there’s a chance to really get into those characters and explore in a way that you might not necessarily get a chance to do. So they said, “Let’s find a place to put this energy where she can channel it in a good way, and learn and do something productive with it.” So instead of squashing it, they found ways to nurture it. Audra was the recipient of their 2018 Beacon of Hope Award.[63]. Audra McDonald: My goal in taking the role wasn’t “I’m going to do something completely different than what everyone else has done.” That wasn’t it. Everybody in Fresno had one, and I felt like we were the last people in Fresno to get one, but we finally got one. You have to hit the back wall, as they say. What was the process that took you from this theater troupe to going to Juilliard as a classical voice major? You have no choice. Audra McDonald: When I was at Juilliard, we had incredible master classes from people like Barbara Cook and Robin Williams, Luciano Pavarotti came … you get all kinds of people from all different walks of life that are out there doing the thing that these students are … In the performing arts you have to have thick, thick, thick skin, because of all the rejection you face on a daily basis, and the fact that work never lasts for very long. Audra McDonald, Actress: Beauty and the Beast. [24] After previews that began on March 25, 2014, the play opened at the Circle in the Square Theatre on April 13, 2014. I want to become a great artist. with Carrie Underwood: NBC announces more cast, releases poster, "Audra McDonald Joins 'The Good Fight' as Season 2 Regular", "How Audra McDonald Handled a Ringing Cell Phone in Character As Billie Holiday", "Audra McDonald and Will Swenson Get Married", "Audra McDonald and Will Swenson Welcome a Baby Girl", "Three Westchester Natives Up For Tony Awards", "Audra McDonald, Will Swenson, Josh Gad, Andrew Rannells & More Host Voter Education Virtual Party", "Lin-Manuel Miranda, Josh Groban Join Charity Record for Separated Families", "Causes – The Official Website of Singer and Actress Audra McDonald", "Christmas with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square: Featuring Audra McDonald and Peter Graves", "I Was Looking at the Ceiling and Then I Saw the Sky", listing, "On the Record: Dazzling Dreamgirls and 1943 Show Tunes", "Complete Allegro Recording, with McDonald, Gunn and Wilson, to Arrive In Stores Feb. 3", "Shania Twain, "Broad City" Stars And More Join The Judges' Panel On "Drag Race" Season 10", "Audra McDonald and Will Swenson Are Expecting a Baby", "Exclusive: Michael Shannon and Audra McDonald Smolder in First Look from 'Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune'", "Golden Plate Awardees of the American Academy of Achievement", "At White House, A Golden Moment For America's Great Artists And Patrons", "Emmis communications/98.7 KISS-FM celebrated Women's History Month by introducing its first annual salute to Phenomenal Women", Audra McDonald Biography and Interview on American Academy of Achievement, Audra McDonald's February 5, 2007 interview on the Tavis Smiley Show, Audra McDonald: Shaping 'Bess' On Broadway, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Play, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Musical, Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Featured Actress in a Play, Drama League's Distinguished Performance Award, The Musicians of the United States Military, Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical, Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Play, Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical, Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Audra_McDonald&oldid=1019434073, United States National Medal of Arts recipients, Internet Off-Broadway Database person ID same as Wikidata, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, Episode: "Head in the Clouds" and "A Quick One, While He's Away", Episode: "Vee and the Family Stone/Twin Trouble", Online Film and Television Association Award, Online Film & Television Association Award, Best Actress in a Limited Series or Movie, October 7–8, 2019 – Noorda Center for Performing Art at, This page was last edited on 23 April 2021, at 09:19. I didn’t know. Fascinatingly enough, a lot of the book is in the opera. The following year, she landed her breakthrough role, New England mill worker Carrie Pipperidge in a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic Carousel. But if that were to happen someday, which would be amazing if it did, then next day I would still be like, “Okay, cool. Every three months you had to audition again. I think I was nine months old. She’s being paid for the time that she has to be away from her family. Great. Was there a musical tradition in your family? “Okay, well it’s not going to get made unless you get this name, and this person is actually not really right for the part, but she’s a starlet and she’s young and pretty, even though it calls for a woman who’s supposed to be 45. Audra McDonald: Yes and no. You’ve got to get an education. [25] In her acceptance speech, "she thanked her parents for encouraging her to pursue her interests as a child. You need to do a show because you’re performing at home. In McDonald’s hands, the role of Bess, often stereotyped as a heartless “loose woman,” emerged as a distinctly injured and uniquely human character. I didn’t know anything about classical music. Ravinia audiences have also seen her in starring roles for productions of Sondheim’s Passion, Sunday in the Park with George, and Anyone Can Whistle at the festival between 2003 and 2005, as well as in a gala evening of his Broadway hits in 2010. She also said that the people who have had the most impact on her life are "Good Company director Dan Pessano and my mother. My mother played the piano as a result. And I agree with that. She became a favorite with local audiences, playing roles such as Dorothy in The Wiz. Jennifer Hudson, Audra McDonald, Amber Riley, More Perform at Educational Theatre Foundation's Theatre Alive! And a performing arts school popped up. Even though you’re just sitting back and this is Julius Caesar. I want to do the singing, I want to do the acting, I want to do the concertizing. You know, you’re living this whole other life with these people that you’re going through these deep emotional things with. Too much of the energy is coming out here and we need to get you into something, because…” So for me it’s absolutely a cathartic experience. To coincide with the album's release, McDonald performed a concert at Avery Fisher Hall in New York City that aired on the PBS series Live from Lincoln Center titled Audra McDonald In Concert: Go Back Home. For the next three seasons, she appeared as Dr. Naomi Bennett in the primetime network series Private Practice. "[12] In a Talk of the Nation interview on NPR, Asian-American actor Thom Sesma said McDonald's performance in Carousel "transcended any kind of type at all", proving her to be "more actress than African-American. No, 300! Audra McDonald: Oh, God. I also wanted to get down to the core of her, which for me was she’s an addict. You have the moment of awareness of what’s just happened, and awareness of, “Okay. Sound of Music: Audra McDonald, the five-time Tony winner, brought one of the emotional high points to the live NBC performance of "Sound of Music" starring Carrie Underwood. And that’s what I wanted to get to, what’s going on underneath. What does the American Dream mean to you? I’m not going to Juilliard. [1] At the time of her birth, her father was stationed with the United States Army. Why does she… …he’s so wonderful.”  And I think the whole audience thinks that. Everything affected me greatly emotionally. Audra McDonald is one of the American theater ’ s outstanding performers. We don’t need another Barbra Streisand. She enjoys a successful career in film and television, and as a recording artist, and regularly appears in concert with America’s greatest orchestras. [45] She sang with the New York Philharmonic in the annual New Year's Eve gala concert on December 31, 2006, featuring music from the movies; it was televised on Live from Lincoln Center by PBS. My grandmother, my maternal grandmother, was a music major in — I guess it would have been the ’30s in Mississippi — went to college, and she was a piano teacher after that. I studied  the effect it has on the body. But you need thin, thin, thin skin in order to access all of your emotions and your creativity so that you can express it. McDonald was raised in Fresno, California, the elder of two daughters; her sister, Alison, writes and directs for television and film. [56] On October 19, 2016, they became parents to a girl, Sally James McDonald-Swenson. [62], She joined the Covenant House board of Directors in 2014. [46] In 2013, she appeared in the HBO documentary Six by Sondheim. If you were setting your next set of goals, what would they be? In 2001, she received her first Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie for the HBO film Wit, starring Emma Thompson and directed by Mike Nichols. As a classical soprano, she has performed in staged operas with the Houston Grand Opera and the Los Angeles Opera and in concerts with symphony orchestras like the Berlin Philharmonic and New York Philharmonic. I ended up being with that dinner theater and that theater group until I was 18 years old. The actors can hear you and it breaks their concentration.” I’ll never forget that lesson. What is her history that has led her to these choices?” You don’t just all of a sudden appear somewhere. Do you believe in the existence of a muse? Keep going.”  But it doesn’t bring money. She goes from being addicted to Crown to being addicted to Porgy, and then gets sucked in by Crown again, and then once Porgy and Crown are both gone, she gets addicted to some sort of comfort again, which is the cocaine. We have women creating their own shows and running their own shows, which is certainly something we did not have even 30 years ago, like we do now. All Rights Reserved. Of her groundbreaking work in encouraging diversity in musical theatre casting, she said in an interview for The New York Times, "I refuse to be stereotyped. I think he saw that I possessed sort of a natural desire to express myself through music and stage work. I’m still an artist who’s searching, trying to evolve, an artist who — nine times out of ten — is dissatisfied with her work, and beats herself, and goes out there and tries again and again, and falls on her face and looks for new challenges. 37 concerts; this tour marked her Australian debut. The recipient of a record-breaking six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, an Emmy Award, and a 2015 National Medal of Arts bestowed on her by President Barack Obama; Audra McDonald has distinguished herself as the most decorated performer in American Theater. Audra McDonald: I guess my answer would be yes, but I also know people that are incredibly creative within their own professions. McDonald became close friends with Kahn after they filmed a TV pilot together, and she found out she was carrying a girl the same day she sang at Kahn's memorial. "[18], In 2014, she was featured in Lynn Nottage's short play Poof!, alongside Tonya Pinkins. In 2012, Audra McDonald received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement presented by Awards Council member General Colin Powell. We need you. You become identified with it. She frequently performs in concert throughout the U.S.[33] and has performed with musical organizations such as the New York Philharmonic and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. In 2006 she made her opera debut at the Houston Grand Opera performing Francis Poulenc's La Voix humaine and the world premiere of Michael John LaChiusa's one-woman opera Send (who are you? Audra McDonald: Well, everything is going to be filtered through you, so you have to. Later in 2007, McDonald starred in the Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade, a lesser-known work of Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt, the team behind the long-running off-Broadway show The Fantasticks. I knew I wanted to be on Broadway. So you have to walk in a lot of different shoes, in that you can’t help but have your mind open as a result of that. Audra McDonald: Dan Pessano was the managing director of Good Company Players, which was the theater company that occupied the dinner theater. Audra McDonald and Billy Eichner on The Late Late Show with James Corden View all Videos >> Instagram. Hopefully we, as a race, will continue to evolve, so that maybe some millennia down the line we’ll use more. How does that work? We had a TV show, a weekly TV show for the junior company. Both of Audra McDonald’s parents were educators. She performed three concerts, titled "Audra McDonald Sings Broadway", in the Sydney Opera House in November 2015, which also included "The Facebook Song" by Kate Miller-Heidke. It’s something that a lot of people run from, because it can be scary. The production was a sensation and earned Audra McDonald a fifth Tony Award, this time for Best Performance by a Leading Actress in a Musical. Audra McDonald Career. Her father was a high school principal, and at the time of Audra McDonald'sbirth was stationed with the U.S. Army. She appeared in a revised version of George Gershwin's opera Porgy and Bess, at the American Repertory Theatre (in Cambridge, Massachusetts) from August through September 2011, and recreated the role on Broadway at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, which opened on January 12, 2012 and closed on September 23, 2012. I don’t know. 23 concerts total; the gap between May and October 2013 is due to McDonald's work with television and her album coming out, causing the three and a half month gap. Her mother, Anna McDonald, later became an administrator at … Or I see other shows. Audra McDonald: I think every human being has a dream. And even with every time I’ve seen the production, I think, “Oh, gosh. On television, McDonald portrayed Dr. Naomi Bennett as a main cast member of Shonda Rhimes's ABC television drama Private Practice from 2007 to 2011. You don’t have many choices nowadays, but certainly not then. It was just part of my family, so I came in that way. They found the theater for me to audition for. [51][52], Since 2012, McDonald has served as host for the PBS series Live From Lincoln Center, for which she shared an Emmy Award for Outstanding Special Class Program with the show's producers. He had taught at Fresno State for many years, and had the ambition to start a theater company, a community theater company in Fresno, California, at a time when theater wasn’t the main export of Fresno, California. You meet up with a company, you work for a couple of months. I learned all that, as well as what it meant to be on stage. If I think I am right for a role I will go for it in whatever way I can. I want to do the plays. Early Life. She also portrayed the character of Liz Lawrence in Season 4 of The Good Wife, a role that she reprises as a main cast member in the spinoff series The Good Fight. But I think opportunity is what the American Dream is about. [28] McDonald received a 2016 Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Lead Actress in a Limited Series or Movie for her role in the broadcast. Man’s desire to evolve. On June 10, 2012, McDonald scored her fifth Tony Award win for her portrayal of Bess in Broadway's The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, thus tying Angela Lansbury and Julie Harris. But it felt good to do it. The organization which oversees programs for homeless youth in 27 cities in six countries across the United States, Canada, and Latin America. How difficult is it to maintain a family life in this field? My mind’s still at work, and processing, processing and learning and learning and learning and learning. With her full lyric soprano voice,[3] she maintains an active concert and recording career throughout the United States performing a wide repertoire from classical to musical theater to jazz and popular songs. We have more women that are making the decisions about what’s being done on television. So not only, I think, did he see someone that could grow if they just had the right sort of mentorship, but I think he just couldn’t help himself. There’s enough sadness in my own life that I can at least touch and sort of simulate, emulate, but even though it was Bess’s experiences you were seeing on stage, I had to filter it through what has happened in my own life. I refuse to say no to myself. In October 2012, she married actor Will Swenson. Although her heart was already set on the Broadway theater, she spent the next years singing classical music rather than acting. In 2008 her recording of Kurt Weill's Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny with the Los Angeles Opera won the Grammy Award for Best Classical Album and the Grammy Award for Best Opera Recording. Because we were doing it on a Broadway stage, we were not doing the big operatic version that you usually see at the Met, or many opera houses across the world. Both parents played piano and came from highly musical families. I had to get on stage to figure out what I was doing wrong, and the stage will teach you.”  And I’ve never forgotten that either. I’m addicted to that rush. We did over 250, 260 performances of that. This is for you, Billie. You’re a Tony winner. Even if I do go out to, whether it’s the Philharmonic or I go to see a great singer — like I saw Ray LaMontagne in concert recently at Carnegie Hall, and it was so… I love him and I was so moved by it. And then on my dad’s side, his mother was a piano teacher and the organist at their church, and all of his sisters sang. [44] She also has appeared on Homicide: Life on the Street (1999), Law & Order: Special Victims Unit (2000), Having Our Say: The Delany Sisters' First 100 Years (1999), the short-lived Mister Sterling (2003), The Bedford Diaries (2006), and Kidnapped (2006–2007), and in the 1999 television remake of Annie as Daddy Warbucks' secretary & soon-to-be wife, Miss Farrell. They come in from separate places and socio-economic backgrounds, and places across the world and days that they’ve had, and then they come together and they become one collective thing, and experience something in a collective way. It was at the time that they were trying to stop forced busing with schools in Fresno, so they started to develop all of these magnet schools around Fresno. Tony Award-winning theater and television actress who portrayed Dr. Naomi Bennett on ABC’s Private Practice. I certainly don’t want to pigeonhole myself as, “All she plays is drug addicts.” For a while people were like, “Are you ever going to do a show where you’re nice to a child?” I did the musical version ofMedea, and then I did Ragtime. So I ended up going to a performing arts high school as well as still doing shows at Good Company Players. Family. What does it feel like to cross that boundary where you’re afraid of falling on your face? “I want to tell you how to make a million dollars. Meanwhile, playwright McNally was at work on a script that would give McDonald her first chance to originate a role in a Broadway musical. My mother and I went to Lawrenceville, Virginia, which is her hometown, and then my dad went off to Vietnam. Carnegie Hall commissioned the song cycle The Seven Deadly Sins: A Song Cycle for McDonald, and she performed it at Carnegie's Zankel Hall on June 2, 2004. That’s all I wanted. McDonald was born in West Berlin, Germany, the daughter of American parents, Anna Kathryn, a university administrator, and Stanley McDonald Jr., a high school principal. Audra Ann McDonald (born July 3, 1970) is an American actress and singer. Theater doesn’t bring money in general. What did you learn from her? “You have to have that to fall back on,” they said, “so audition everywhere you can.” My mom took me to New York and I auditioned for Juilliard. Or is it something that is really just innate in different levels within different people? So I told my parents I wanted to move to New York, and they said, “You have to go to school. Maybe Oscars do, but Tonys do not. Who do I study? She’s a fast woman, that’s all. And that sort of started me on my journey. But you’re also a concert artist, a recording artist, and a dramatic actress on stage and films and television. How much do you draw on your own life or other things that you’ve observed? Audra McDonald’s strengths as a musician have always been best … He’s a great actor. [43], McDonald has also made many television appearances, both musical and dramatic. Audra McDonald … opposite Carrie Underwood as Maria. But I didn’t know what I was doing at all, and Dan was the one who basically taught me all of my basics about theater, like the fundamental stuff that you need to know about being in the theater and being around the theater. Anyone who has ever had the joy of knowing Kristi knows not only what a beautiful person she was but also what a selfless and passionately devoted mother she was. Who is Dan Pessano and what role did he play in your life? I can fill up that way, but I’m still observing as a student as well. She has appeared on the stage in both musicals and dramas, such as Ragtime, A Raisin in the Sun, and Porgy and Bess. Occupation. Different levels in different people. Her performance drew universal praise, not only from the drama critics, but from opera lovers drawn to the play’s subject matter. In 1995, McDonald won a role in the play Master Class by Terence McNally. But you were very disruptive in doing that and that’s something you need to know that’s very disruptive. Do you think that that’s going to change? So I credit him with sort of everything for me, as far as getting into theater. So when they accepted me, I was shocked. Maybe that’s what he saw. There wasn’t a lot left. That’s something that probably hadn’t really occurred to me before. I think with the different media it’s just about what muscles you use to express that. [40], In May 2013, Audra McDonald released her first solo album in seven years, Go Back Home, with a title track from the Kander & Ebb musical The Scottsboro Boys. How important is it for somebody else to encourage creativity in early life? Audra Ann McDonald[1] (born July 3, 1970)[2] is an American actress and singer. [37], In September 2008, American composer Michael John LaChiusa was quoted in Opera News Online, as working on an adaptation of Bizet's Carmen with McDonald in mind.[38]. But he’s a teacher first. Is it looking for an opposite type of role? Did you try to approach anything differently in the character of Bess? So I don’t know. You excavate everything. Since her Carnegie Hall debut in 1998, she has been an audience favorite, returning for many of the Hall’s most celebrated events. And I think had they not done that, I might have been sort of an overmedicated kid. “She said, “No, no, no, no. Overview. What’s the quote? But it has to be a constant sense of evolution. Audra McDonald: There’s a little bit of all that. Audra McDonald’s age is 50. I thought — especially because we were attempting to put it in a more musical theater genre again as opposed to the operatic — I knew the slings and arrows that were headed our way, and I thought, “And I left a really healthy television show in California to do this.” I came back to go home, and left a really healthy paycheck and all that, to not only be with my family, but then also to pursue this Porgy and Bess. Prior to the Broadway opening, the original cast album featuring McDonald was released. In addition to dominating the Broadway stage, Audra McDonald has made successful forays into grand opera. She became a local favorite and went on to study classical singing at New York’s Juilliard School. You have no script. I think for a lot of people that are in performing arts, it’s easy to fall into the trap of starting to confuse what’s real life and what’s not, because to your body it’s all real. It’s part of the tragedy of it. This is also a business where, especially for women, there’s such a consciousness of age and aging. I have a family, and I’ve got a kid, and a husband, and stepchildren, and I’ve got my life at home, and then at night running off and falling in love with Norm Lewis and getting raped and beaten up by Phillip Boykin. ” They were educators. Because it scared the bejesus out of me, and because I knew that if I get past this, or even if I am just the slightest bit better as an actress — or even a singer, or even a classical singer — for having done this, it will be worth it. She was born in West Berlin, Germany, and had a younger sister. Audra McDonald: They’d be all over the place. Maybe another reason is a lot of times they’ve got to walk in a lot of different shoes.

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