Tony Honoree Audra McDonald Continually Surprises

Vocalist Audra McDonald has always been adventurous. The recipient of more than 20 major honors, including three Tony Awards for Best Featured Actress in a Musical, two for Best Featured Actress in a Play and two Emmy nominations for Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or Movie, she surprises at every turn.

Like her frequent colleague, Dawn Upshaw, she champions new composers. Her touch of fairy dust launches them instantly. Among those whose songs now have a firm place in her repertoire are Adam Guettel, Gabriel Kahane, Michael John LaChiusa and Jason Robert Brown.

Even before she graduated from Juilliard in 1993, she was on tour in "Secret Garden"; within a year, she was on Broadway as Carrie Pipperidge in "Carousel." Befitting the impact of that debut performance, she won her first Tony Award, a Theatre World Award and a Drama Desk Award. Her next Tony for Sarah in "Ragtime" was followed by one for "Marie Christine," LaChiusa's musical based on the Greek legend of Medea set in the Gay Nineties.

As a recording artist, McDonald appears on ten cast recordings and is featured on sixteen others ranging from a guest appearance with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to the 100th anniversary celebration of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess." Her four solo albums are a brilliant array of popular numbers from old and new composers. In "Build a Bridge," the most recent, she journeys where least expected with bows to Kermit the Frog, Rufus Wainwright and Elvis Costello.

Eager to conquer new vistas, McDonald alternated musicals with serious drama and took home her first Tony for Best Featured Actress as Sharon in "Master Class." She repeated that feat with "A Raisin in the Sun." Her dramatic persona continued to thrive in the Lincoln Center production of Shakespeare's "Henry IV" and on television. Until earlier this year, she played Dr. Naomi Bennett on ABC-TV's "Private Practice." Her arduous schedule got in the way, and no wonder.

Along with a solo performance at Carnegie Hall, she has been weaving concerts between the American Repertory Theater production of Gershwin's "Porgy and Bess" that just received the green light for Broadway. Although she has appeared in several operas, among them Kurt Weill's "The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahogany" for L.A. Opera and two solo one-act operas at Houston Grand Opera, the new "Porgy and Bess" may herald her future focus.

Her favorite aspect of this contemporary version is the fact that it goes back to DuBose Heyward's book. He researched newspaper articles about Charleston during that period and drew Porgy from the story of a beggar around the town. This and other touches added from his original book enhance the characters.

"This Bess is different because it's me, a filter of my own soul," McDonald said. "I'm trying to understand her life as an addict and what someone goes through to defeat addiction."

She likes the the new presentation of Porgy because it forces his handicap. In other productions, he was on his knees, but now he struggles to move and fight for independence. His handicap is something Bess doesn't handle at first, but in the end, she drags or carries Porgy to the safe house.

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