Audra McDonald will be the guest on today's episode of NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. She talks about her performance as Bess in the Broadway production of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, for which she has been nominated for a Tony Award and a Drama Desk Award and has won the Outer Critics Circle Award. She is also the subject of a feature article in the New York Times. McDonald is the winner of four Tonys has recorded four solo albums for Nonesuch.
Audra McDonald will be the guest on today's episode of NPR's Fresh Air with Terry Gross. On the show, McDonald talks about her performance as Bess in the current Broadway revival of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, for which she has received rave reviews; nominations for a Tony Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musical, to be awarded June 10, and the Drama Desk Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical, awarded June 3; and the Outer Critics Circle Award for Outstanding Actress in a Musical. Tune in to your local NPR station to hear Fresh Air and listen online at npr.org, where the show will be available this evening.
The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess, at the Richard Rodgers Theater in New York City, marks Audra McDonald's tenth turn in a Broadway production. She is the winner of four Tony Awards, for Carousel (1994), Master Class (1996), Ragtime (1998), and A Raisin in the Sun (2004), and has recorded four solo albums for Nonesuch Records: Way Back to Paradise (1998), How Glory Goes (2000), Happy Songs (2002), and Build a Bridge (2006).
McDonald is the subject of a feature article on the cover of this past Sunday's New York Times Arts & Leisure section highlighting the Tony Award nominations. Times writer Patrick Healy visits her at home to talk about her successful career on Broadway and on television's Private Practice and the vital role her family plays in all of it.
"Very suddenly life is blooming with renewal for the 41-year-old Ms. McDonald, one of Broadway’s most acclaimed homegrown stars," writes Healy. "Yet for all of Ms. McDonald’s work as Bess over the last year, it is her new family that has cast Broadway—and everything else—in a different light."
Read the feature article at nytimes.com.
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