DIVA TALK: Catching Up With Tony Winners (and 2012 Nominees) Audra McDonald and Judy Kaye

By Andrew Gans
08 Jun 2012

Audra McDonald
Audra McDonald
Photo by Joseph Marzullo/WENN

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Audra McDonald
Four-time Tony winner Audra McDonald may add a fifth award to her mantel June 10 for her breathtaking performance in the current Broadway revival of The Gershwins' Porgy and Bess. The acclaimed singing actress, in fact, has already won Outer Critics Circle, Drama League and Drama Desk awards for her work as the ill-fated Bess.

Although the gifted artist has already nabbed Broadway's highest honor for her standout performances in Carousel, Master Class, Ragtime and A Raisin in the Sun, McDonald told me the morning Tony nominations were announced, "This show means so much to me and just the journey that we've all taken. I'm honored and thrilled and humbled that I was nominated, but I'm so proud of the show and that the Nominating Committee decided to recognize so many facets of this show. I'm just so proud of that. It's a very cohesive, very close family, and the fact that so many of them were recognized today just filled my heart with pride and joy and gratitude. I'm so happy for them. I'm so happy for Phillip [Boykin] and David [Alan Grier] and Norm [Lewis], especially. I'm just thrilled for everybody!"

McDonald's joy, however, was not confined to her own show's artists. "[I'm happy for] all the people in all the categories for God sake!" she exclaimed. "I have buddies everywhere! Steve Kazee, I'm so, so happy for him. I'm beside myself for Steve, [the Once star who shared a stage with McDonald in the Broadway revival of 110 in the Shade]."

Bess, the role created on Broadway in 1935 by Anne Brown, is one McDonald knew she would eventually play. "I always thought, somewhere in the back of my mind, that there was a collision course. And, with this role, I just didn't know how and where it would happen," McDonald explained. "I knew it was normally done in opera houses, and I'm not usually what people think of when they think operatically. I'm just not usually what opera houses go for. So I just wondered if it were to happen, how it would happen. So when it all started to come together, and I got approached by [director] Diane [Paulus] and [producer] Jeffrey [Richards] and [co-adapter] Suzan-Lori Parks—they'd been working on this adaptation I think two years by the time they contacted me — I thought, 'Oh, wow. This is how it's going to happen. This is great, and this is exciting… A chance to come home,' so I was thrilled."

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