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Audra
McDonald is another four-time Tony Award winner.
She broke the racial barrier as Carrie Pipperidge in an integrated cast
staging of Rodgers & Hammerstein's Carousel, opposite opera
diva Shirley Verrett.
Her next win was as Best Supporting Actress in a Play, for singing Lady
Macbeth's fierce note aria in Terrence McNally's love letter to Maria
Callas, Master Class. After that, she won as Sarah
"Brown Eyes" in the moving and majestic Ragtime, and
won again in a non-musical in 2004 for her performance in Lorraine
Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun, opposite Phylicia Rashad and
P. Diddy. In concert stagings, McDonald has triumphed as Bess in
Gershwin's Porgy & Bess, the Beggar Woman in Sweeney
Todd, Anna in Brecht & Weill's The Seven Deadly Sins,
Deena Jones in Dreamgirls, Clara in Sondheim's Passion,
Dot/Marie in Sunday in the Park with George, Julie Jordan in Carousel,
and Nurse Fay Apple in Anyone Can Whistle. Michael John
LaChiusa wrote his Medea-inspired opera Marie Christine
especially for McDonald's unique talents, and she continues to champion
the works of contemporary musical theatre composers (LaChiusa, Jason
Robert Brown, Adam Guettel, Stephen Flaherty & Lynn Ahrens) and
recently commissioned them all to write one song each for her own song
cycle version of The Seven Deadly Sins. |
