Audra McDonald
Audra McDonald
Event Description
Audra McDonald is unparalleled in the breadth and versatility of her artistry, as both a singer and an actress. With a record six Tony Awards, two Grammy Awards, and a long list of other accolades to her name, she is among today’s most highly regarded performers. Blessed with a luminous soprano and an incomparable gift for dramatic truth-telling, she is equally at home on Broadway and opera stages as she is in roles on film and television. In addition to her theatrical work, she maintains a major career as a concert and recording artist, regularly appearing on the great stages of the world.
McDonald won her first Tony Award for for Carousel at Lincoln Center Theater only a year after graduating from Julliard. She received two additional Tony Awards over the next four years for her performances in Terrence McNally’s Master Class and Ragtime, earning her an unprecedented three Tony Awards before the age of 30. In 2004 she won her fourth Tony for A Raisin in the Sun, in 2012 she won her fifth for her role in Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess, and in 2014 she made Broadway history when she won her sixth award, this time for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.
McDonald made her opera debut in 2006 at Houston Grand Opera, where she starred in a double bill: Poulenc’s monodrama La Voix Humaine and the world premiere of its companion piece, Send. She made her Los Angeles Opera debut in 2007 starring alongside Patti LuPone in John Doyle’s production of Kurt Weill’s Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny, from which the resulting recording won McDonald two Grammy Awards, for Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Album.
A familiar face to television audiences, McDonald received her first Emmy nomination for the HBO film version of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit, and has also starred in the 1999 remake of Annie, NBC’s Law and Order: SVU, Mister Sterling, The Bedford Diaries, and Kidnapped, Private Practice, and NBC’s live telecast of The Sound of Music. On PBS, McDonald has headlined dozens of telecasts including Stephen Sondheim’s Passion, a Rodgers and Hammerstein tribute concert titled Something Wonderful, and five galas with the New York Philharmonic. She was also featured in the PBS television special, A Broadway Celebration: In Performance at the White House, singing at the request of the President and First Lady.
A gloriously decorated artist, McDonald’s additional accolades include five Drama Desk Awards, five Outer Critics Circle Awards, four NAACP Image Awards nominations, an Ovation Award, a Theatre World Award, and the Drama League’s 2000 Distinguished Achievement in Musical Theatre and 2012 Distinguished Performance Award—just to name a few.
Please join us in welcoming this incredible artist and entertainer to IU Auditorium and Bloomington.
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