![]() ![]() She followed this with her feature film debut in the film Seven Servants. The Award states in part, “for lighting up Broadway as one of its brightest stars…In musicals, concerts, operas, and the recording studio, her rich, soulful voice continues to take her audiences to new heights.” (Photo: Jesse Frohman) In 2016, Audra McDonald was awarded the National Medal of Arts by President Obama. McDonald won a second Tony Award for her performance, this time for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play. Her performance drew universal praise, not only from the drama critics, but from opera lovers drawn to the play’s subject matter. Although Master Class was a straight dramatic play, rather than a musical, the action required McDonald’s character to sing a notoriously difficult aria from Verdi’s Macbeth - a far cry from the comic numbers she sang in Carousel. ![]() McDonald was cast as a young voice student who survives a grueling lesson with the legendary opera singer Maria Callas, portrayed by the British actress Zöe Caldwell. In 1995, McDonald won a role in the play Master Class by Terence McNally. In this, her first featured role on the New York Stage, she won Drama Desk and Critics Circle awards, and a Tony Award for Best Perfromance by a Featured Actress in a Musical. Even critics who were skeptical about the colorblind casting of the show were enthusiastic about McDonald’s soaring voice and sly comedic skills. The following year, she landed her breakthrough role, New England mill worker Carrie Pipperidge in a revival of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s classic Carousel. December 2012: Audra McDonald performs “Stars and the Moon” from her 1998 solo album Way Back to Paradise. She stayed with the show on its national tour before returning to Juilliard to graduate in 1993. She eventually chafed at the discipline and took a year off, landing a spot in the chorus of the Broadway musical The Secret Garden. Although her heart was already set on the Broadway theater, she spent the next years singing classical music rather than acting. The school has a highly regarded actor training program, but young Audra, who had had little formal voice training, was accepted into the classical voice program. On graduating from the performing arts magnet program at Theodore Roosevelt High School, she auditioned for the Juilliard School of Music in New York City. 2012: Audra McDonald, who stars in the the Broadway production of The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess at the Richard Rodgers Theatre, performing “Summertime” at the Academy of Achievement’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. ![]() She became a favorite with local audiences, playing roles such as Dorothy in The Wiz. The company’s director, Dan Pessano, taught her the basics of stagecraft and theater etiquette. The theater became the center of young Audra’s life. When a local theater group, the Good Company Players, announced the formation of a children’s musical theater group, her parents took her to audition, with her father acting as accompanist. Rather than medicate her, her parents sought an outlet for her prodigious energy. ![]() The older of two daughters, Audra was a rambunctious, hyperactive child. Powell, presents Audra McDonald with the Gold Medal of the American Academy of Achievement in a 2012 ceremony at the Academy’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Golden Plate Awards Council member General Colin L. Both parents played piano and came from highly musical families. Her mother, Anna McDonald, later became an administrator at California Polytechnic University in San Luis Obispo. Her father, after serving as a high school teacher and principal, became assistant superintendent of human resources for the Fresno Unified School District. Both of Audra McDonald’s parents were educators. Following his military service, the family settled in Fresno, California. Audra McDonald was born in Berlin, Germany, where her father, Stanley McDonald, Jr., was stationed with the U.S. ![]()
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