Audra McDonald - 'The Gilded Age' [LIVE]

24:22Was it the National Theater? Yeah, in London, where he had cast Mr. Snow as a black man, Enoch Snow. So he knew that he wanted to, you know, have colorblind casting, which is what it was kind of, I think, used to be called.

24:36Audra McDonald:I think there's a better term for it now. It's, you know, it's more in terms like color conscious casting, you know, we're not blind to it, we see it. So I had an agent by this point. And so they said, you know, we've got this audition for you for Carousel. And so I went in and they kept calling me back and they kept calling me back. And the very first audition I did, they asked me to leave the room and they said, but don't go anywhere. And so I sat there while other people went in and went out and I was like, okay. And then I saw this very tiny woman in jazz pants go in with a very short pixie haircut and this very good-looking sort of like guy with like bleach blonde hair and bright blue eyes and they kind of walked in.

25:29And then the casting director came back out and said, you can come back in now. And they said, this is Michael John LaCusa and this is Graziella Danielle and they're working on a musical here and we'd like you to sing for them. And I was like, is that for Carousel? And they're like, no, we just want you to sing. Okay, so I sang for them. and then they were like oh that and Michael John was like okay we want you to learn this music and then come back in and sing for us so they he they were doing hello again and so they had me come back in and audition for them again and decided that I was too young for the part but then Michael John said I'm gonna write a musical for you someday and he did and I did it at Lincoln Center at any rate so I kept getting called back for Carousel the final call back I had to fly in from, I was doing Secret Garden on the road.

26:19I went back out on the road after I graduated and I flew in for the final callback and in the middle of singing Mr. Snow, I passed out. Like literally hit the ground. Hit the ground of the Mitzi Newhouse stage, which is where they were holding the callbacks. All I remember is thinking, wow, I already left the audition and went home and I'm asleep. I was like, I don't remember going back home. I'm like, yes, I did. And then I heard Mary Rogers, Richard Rogers' daughter, who was there, saying, somebody get her some orange juice. And then I realized I had passed out, and I was so horrified, so horrified.

27:03And I said, please let me sing for you again. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry. They're like, sit down, are you okay? I'm like, I'm fine, I'm fine, just please, please, please, please, let me sing for you again. And so they're like, they got me some orange juice, and then I sang the song again, and then they cast me. I mean, I get, but the beautiful thing about it is that, you know, it was at Lincoln Center and Juilliard's at Lincoln Center. So there I was starring in a Broadway show at Lincoln Center and I could see my old classrooms and I could see the windows that I looked out of

27:39Audra McDonald:and would stare at Lincoln Center and, you know, south on Broadway and think, I'm never going to get there. And then, like, a year later, with some stroke of luck, there I was. The flowers will be buzzing with the heart of bees The birds will make a racket in the church of trees When I marry Mr. Snow He'll carry me across the threshold And I'll be as meek as a lamb Then he'll set me on my feet And I'll say hi to sweet Now, Mr. Snow, here I am! And for that show, won your first Tony at just 23. This would become old hat for you to win these, but do you remember your first? Yeah, I mean, it was a blur.

28:39it's a blur but I do have very specific memories I have a memory of getting up when they called my name when I went and stood up on the stage realized I had to say something and to look out in the audience and see all these people who were just my heroes and I was just like oh God what do I do I don't know how to do this and my eyes landed on Carol Channing and she had this big old smile on her face and I calmed down. I don't know why. So I just, I feel like I did the whole speech to Carol Channing. The beautiful and the tragic thing about Broadway is that only people who are there can really see it or experience it.

29:27I mean, some of your things have been filmed and, but even that, I think you, you've said, is not the same for the performer or the audience. It can be very different. So stipulating that most people that are in the room here that we're going to be talking about, first of all, for some of these, we're not yet alive, but also certainly worth there. I still I want to touch on at least a handful of these great roles briefly just so that we can, you know, there's something I think to be taken away from from a bunch of them. So the next one that you did and the next one that you want to Tony for was Masterclass.

30:02share in the final segment of these people taking masterclasses with Maria Callis and the one who confronts her about her behavior. The significance also though, this is 1996, is that it was the first of three that you ended up doing, I believe, that were Terrence McNally projects, right? And in this case, he became a mentor of yours, I believe. Absolutely. Just, you know, let's, with this one, when you think back to that one, what comes to mind? Working with the hurricane, the life force that was Zoe Caldwell, who played Maria Callas.

30:37Audra McDonald:She taught me a lot about the theater, a lot about myself, a lot about empowering myself, not giving my power away. And she was a taskmaster too. I mean, she would give it to you straight, But she was so loving and so interested in pouring all that she knew, her wisdom and her stories and her failures. She was so interested in sharing all of that with me and her triumphs. She became kind of like a second mom to me to the point where I named my daughter after her. My oldest daughter is named after Zoe Caldwell. Yeah. That's great. The next one, and the next one that you wanted Tony for, was, again, a McNally project.

31:21In this case, originating, right, Ragtime. Yeah. Which is back now on Broadway. Yeah. But you were there at the beginning as Sarah, the wife and mother who was struggling at, I guess, turn of the century time. First time originating show, right? A new musical. Well, a musical, yeah, because Masterclass, I originated that role. But yes, but no, but the musical. Yeah, being there as the musical is being born. Yes. What's that like? And also, if I can just note for people here listening, they may be familiar with somebody who played a very young character in that show named Leah. Leah Michelle. Right.

32:00That's right. I've known her since she was teeny tiny. Here's something she said, by the way, back in 2014. Quote, Audra is probably the best singer in the world up there with Barbara. I don't think she has any idea what an influence she had on me. I would say 80 % of my singing knowledge came from Audra, how to warm up, how to breathe, how to take care of my voice. All of my beliefs are because Audra instilled them in me, and I'm forever grateful to her, close quote. So just not that this is about her, but I mean, take us back to, again, originating musical with that group of people. Yeah, it was incredible.

32:33It was, you know, not only, you know, the incredible cast, we had Brian Stokes Mitchell and the late, great Maren Mazie, Peter Friedman and a young Paul Dano at the time and young Lea Michele and an incredible cast but I mean the creatives behind that we had E.L. Doctorow who wrote the book who was still alive and and very much a part of what we were doing we had Frank Galati the great director we had Terrence McNally and Lynn Aarons and Steve Flaherty. Radiela Danielle was um was the musical stager and the choreographer so it was just an incredible incredible group of people and Ragtime is a beast of a show and there's so many different stories to be told and so to watch them figure out how best to tell the story was an education in and of itself and to be a part of that you know and to think about you know I can still remember things that you know were put in because we realized that there was gaps missing or the fact that like When Lynn and Steve decided to bring Sarah back in the second act, even though she's killed in the first act, spoiler alert, but if you don't know, you're never going to know.

33:52Realizing the audience needs to see her again and to be reminded of all that Cole House lost and to remind us of why he's doing what he's doing was an incredible moment.

34:03Audra McDonald:The fact that there was no daddy's son in that show when we first did, when they, the first iteration of it and Lynn and Steve and Terrence all realized we need to, in order to grieve Sarah, we need to forgive her first. And you know, what she does seems a very unthinkable thing to try and bury your baby. And so we needed to understand why Sarah tried to do that. And Sarah needs to ask for forgiveness from her child too. So they wrote daddy's son in one night and then brought it into rehearsal the next day during one of our workshops and said, we've figured out this song, you know. So to watch that creative process, which is, it is like birthing a baby, was an incredible education for me.

34:47And to know,

34:48Audra McDonald:I knew the first time I heard Stokes sing Wheels of a Dream. I didn't even sing that first time because I didn't know it, but he knew it in that first read-through he did. And when he was holding out that last note and everybody at the tables, all of us just so spontaneously started crying. It just came, it was just one of those moments I thought, I don't know what this is going to be, but this is, it's a core memory for me. I was like, this is going to be something very, very, very, very, very, very special. So it's kind of fulfilling to see how the show has continued to live and be relevant.

35:22Audra McDonald:And I think it's truly a classic now. I think it's a theater classic. And you did it two full years. One year in Canada and one year on Broadway.

35:35And he will rise, our sun will rise, on the wheels of a dream.

36:01The end of that experience was that third Tony by the age of just 28, which is unbelievable, right? I mean, now, the thing, though, is through that Tony, you couldn't have gone much better for you in your Broadway career. Then there's that you mentioned, LaCusa. Yeah, Michael John wrote me a musical. Wrote you a musical. That was Marie Christine, your title character. First time playing the lead of a show on Broadway, right? Yes. Or maybe anywhere. No, yeah, yeah. This one, years, again, helping to develop a show. With Graziella as well, yeah. And then this one, I think my sense is a little bit heartbreakingly, just didn't run very long.

36:44No, it didn't. It didn't. Maybe it was, you know, there's a million reasons why shows don't run or, you know, I feel like if Marie Christine had been done a little bit later, I think maybe more people would have been into it. But we, you know, we had our fans.

37:00Audra McDonald:And for me, any show that I'm a part of, I know I'm going to learn something from. So it wasn't, for me, there's no tragedy in it at all. I, you know, I learned how to be a leading lady really with that role. You know, for me, it's all about evolution, evolution as an artist. You know, you don't only evolve from successes. In fact, some of the biggest growth comes from failure. And I don't even think it was a failure, but you know. So Raisin in the Sun, which you would later, that one was one of the ones that was preserved on film, but you did this revival in 2004. First of all, one of your co-stars in that was somebody who I think you'd, you've talked about loving for your whole life and then are currently doing the Gilded Age with, Felicia Rashad.

37:47But also the director, Kenny Leon, you've said, quote, I have never been pushed that way by a director, close quote. Maybe that's changed in the years since. I don't know. But what is it that was the case with him? And what is it that makes somebody a good director of you? Well, I say that about Kenny Leon, who's a fantastic director, and I've since worked with him on Ohio State Murders. Kenny is the biggest cheerleader I know as a director, but he believes in you before you believe in yourself, if that makes sense. So he says, jump off the cliff. And you're like, it's a cliff. He's like, jump off the cliff.

38:23I'm like, I can't do it. He's like, and then he grabs you and you jump off the cliff together, because he knows that there will be discovery and success at the bottom of it. And so he's already predicted what's going to happen at the bottom of the cliff. We're going to, find our wings and we're going to fly. And so there were times in rehearsal where he'd be like, okay, so we're going to take it from here. And at this moment right here, what's she doing? Well, she's really upset. She's crying. So start crying. Now you're just like, wait, how do I wait, wait, wait. He's like, we will find it. We will find it.

38:53And so for me, someone who was always feeling like, well, I have to, you know, evolve or become, you know, fully formed as these characters day two of rehearsal, Kenny is like, you know, it's messy down there, but I know it is in there.

39:09Audra McDonald:And so he would just push me in a way that I had never been pushed before. And as a result, I learned to take bigger risks because I knew that there would be growth in them. And Kenny's one of the reasons that I learned to do that. I think that one of the things that I didn't fully appreciate until I started covering theater a little bit in New York was what it actually means. And I still don't, obviously, until you, unless I'm doing it, I don't appreciate it. But like you guys are doing eight shows a week. Somebody comes in with their family for a fun day and they'll go to one of the, you know, could be just the first of two that day that you're going to do.

39:48You have at the same time a life and a family and friends and things that you, So what I wonder is if you can talk about maybe this next one as an example of how you are somehow able to, with being such a professional, do your job at the same time that the best and the worst of things can be going on in your own life. So this next one, 2007, 110 in the Shade. First time working with Lonnie Price, who would also do Lady, right? Or maybe not as directing. No, no, no. We had done a lot of stuff together, but nothing on Broadway. That was our first time. Yeah, we had done a lot of. Yeah. Okay. So this is, again, first of all, first black actress to play that part, right?

40:31But like unimaginable what you were dealing with at the same time that you continued to do this show. Yeah. Yeah. So I was doing 110 in the shade and we were in our final week of previews. And I was walking out of the stage door after Sunday matinee. and I got a phone call from my stepmom saying that my dad had been killed in a plane crash. And because we were getting ready to open and we were opening at the end of the season, which means you have to officially be open by a certain time or you won't qualify for Tony nominations. You can't qualify for that season. And so I had to go home. So they had to shut down the show, but I had to get back in time to get back into the show

41:21Audra McDonald:before the deadline came. I ran home to Fresno the next day. We buried my dad, and then I had to turn around and run back and get back into the show. And in the show, I was playing a character who was this old maid or thought of as an old maid because she was very headstrong, has her ideas, but no man has ever shown her any sort of affection. And she's afraid she's going to end up alone her entire life. But she has this beautiful relationship with her father. And a lot of the show is about the relationship between Lizzie and her father. So it ended up being very cathartic in a way that I was able to sort of, I don't want to say luxuriate, because I mean, I was in shock.

42:11Audra McDonald:but to be able to express love in the way that I was able to do so on an unrightly basis with John Cullum playing my father and sort of get that love out in a way and still have to go on and do the show. But in a way that show saved me too because it gave me a place to land as I was dealing with that unimaginable tragedy. And then I guess there's been another enduring legacy of that. Yes. Well, yeah. I ended up meeting Will Swenson, who was in the ensemble of that show, and I ended up marrying him later. And we've been together, like, I don't even know how many thousands of years. And we have a nine-year-old daughter now.

43:05So, I mean, my whole talk about, again, you know, this tragedy and then like a whole other part of my life was waiting on the other side of that tragedy. And I had, you know, no idea at the time. Yeah. So that was 2007, that show. 2007 was also the beginning of you on a show called Private Practice. Yes. The spinoff of Grey's Anatomy. You were, just to remind folks, Dr. Naomi Bennett, the best friend of Kate Walsh's character. Prior to that, you'd done screen work. You had, for example, been in your Daddy Warbucks secretary in the TV movie of Annie. That my kids never wanted to watch. That was a good show.

43:42I liked it growing up. I think it's because I was in it. Back in 99, 2001 TV movie of Wit directed by Mike Nichols. Emma Thompson, yeah. That was your first Emmy nomination. 2008, around that same time, TV movie of Raisin in the Sun, which I mentioned, another Emmy nomination. But you've said, quote, I was so afraid of the camera before doing private practice. close quote you've also there were many times you talked about being terrified of the camera so bring us into the you know what that's about because a non-actor might say oh acting is acting no but like it's a whole different ballgame yeah no and I spent my entire life in the theater and every once in a while I'd get these roles where I had to get in front of the camera and I was always

44:25Audra McDonald:sort of like, I don't want to move because I don't know what that is in my face. I knew that if I were to play a scene the way I would play the scene in a theater, that it's too much. It looks grotesque because the camera is so close to you and the camera can pick up everything. But I think because the camera was so close to me, I thought, well, I know I have to bring it down, but I didn't know where the levels were. So I would just kind of go to do nothing, do nothing. And then, you know, you get a TV show, especially like with private practice, that's in the days when we were doing like 26 episodes, you know, so a season, which is kind of rare now, I think, yeah.

45:09Audra McDonald:But in those days, that's what was happening. And so you're spending 12, 13, 14 hours a day in front of a camera. And so I was like, I got to figure out, I got to get over this fear. And then one day I realized I'm not afraid of being in front of an audience in a theater. And the camera is the audience and you're not afraid of the audience. So just the audience is here. So once I let the camera stop being this sort of robot, that's like, you know, sort of counting all of my pores and realized, no, that's just how the audience is going to connect with you, I was able to let go of that fear because I was able to frame it in a way that my body, you know, what theater as a first language was able to understand.

45:57Audra McDonald:And so that was a real sort of breakthrough, I think, for me. On days where it's two o 'clock in the morning and you're still, you know, on set trying to, you know, shoot a scene, you know, where you're all operating on something or I don't know, for private practice, we had a lot of scenes around the conference table or whatnot. You know, I finally sort of figured it out. You know, they say you think loudly when you're, you know, in front of a camera because it picks up on everything. So think louder than you actually do. I mean, that's not that specific, but that's a good way to think about it.

46:32Audra McDonald:Or that's, yeah, that was helpful for me. One thing I can't help but wonder, and, you know, for instance, with the Gilded Age, which we're going to come to more in a bit. But like that show is populated by some of the most unbelievable people on Broadway, yourself, Kelly O 'Hara, we could go on and on. I wonder if you guys sit around at any point or have it, maybe it's now so just accepted from having done both stage and screen acting for so many years that maybe this is something you guys have just come to accept. But it seems so insane and unjust that you guys work as hard as you do on Broadway.

47:06Again, eight shows a week, hours a day, You get there, I think you say two hours earlier, three hours before every performance. And then you go to occasionally do a screen project and you do it great. But I mean, you look at the people who are the A-list of screen acting. And for a few days, fraction of the amount of work, the amount of compensation and attention and everything. It just seems so freaking unjust to me. And I'm not even in the middle of it. I, it's, does it piss you off?

47:41Audra McDonald:No, I mean, I don't think it pisses me off. I mean, theater has never been like a money-making adventure, you know? I mean, if you're doing theater, it's because you really love it. You know, people, even like people who produce theater, I mean, it's very rare that you get a big old runaway hit. You know, most shows lose money, but that's not why we do it. We do it because we love it, you know? and you know the to to film a television show or to you know do a a film where you're you know I mean when I was doing the good fight and even with um private practice and sometimes even with the gilded age you know we've got like 4 15 a.m calls you know so we have it hard in a different way you know or or of course it's in Albany in August and and wool and all that so yeah I mean there's different muscles that need to be strengthened and hardened in order to do what it is that we do.

48:42Audra McDonald:Do I wish theater folks made a little more money? Like, you know, some of the salaries that TV folks make? Yeah, that'd be great. But that's okay. And I guess the other... It's not okay, but I can't do anything better. What can you do? Yeah. I guess it's cool that maybe, you know, and I remember we, you were nice enough to do our Tony's round table this past last season. And it was a number of people who moved between the media, Sarah Snook and Darren Criss. And, you know, I can't even remember some of the other folks, but the thing that was noted, I think by Darren Criss is like, yeah, I mean, I guess the good part is somebody discovers you on private practice and maybe it's their gateway drug to you in theater.

49:29Although it was funny that he was saying he sat down at a, one of your concerts that you do was sitting next to this nice lady. He started to struck up a conversation and said, you know, what brings you here? And she said, I just love her on private practice. I didn't even know she sang. You know, it's so interesting too. I mean, if you look at a lot of, I think even with film actors and television actors, you know, if you trace back to their like earliest roots, I mean, a lot of them did like, you know, high school, their musicals in high school or dinner theater or things like that as well. I mean, we get in how we get in.

50:05You get the bug how you get the bug. You did four seasons on that show. And then as referenced, also U.S. Attorney on The Good Wife and The Good Fight for a number of years, three Critics' Choice Award nominations. There was The Sound of Music Live, the 2016 TV movie or film version of Lady Day, which we're going to come to, won an Emmy for hosting live from Lincoln Center, which you've done. I think I just, I grew up at Lincoln Center. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It sort of feels like that. Yeah, yeah. The live action Beauty and the Beast. More recent, even films, Respect, Rustin, Origin. So a lot of screen work, but always going back to the theater, including a role that you'd said you'd always wanted to play your whole life, but also that really put that opera training to the test, and that's Porgy and Bess.

50:54Yeah. 2012. 12. Can you take us into why that would have been so challenging?

51:00Audra McDonald:There's constant debate among those of us who debate these things about whether Porgy and Bess is an opera or a musical. I'm not going to even weigh in because who cares, but I think it was vocally one of the most challenging things I've ever done. And if you think of it in terms of an opera, you don't do an opera eight times a week. You don't do an opera twice in one day. It is certainly operatic in scope and the score, and especially for Bess, it's a big, what they call a big sing. It's a really, really big sing. And it's one of the musicals, operas, whatever, that I listened to over and over again while I was at Juilliard because when I was still struggling, I was thinking, is there any opera I could do that I would feel right in singing?

51:44Audra McDonald:And this was the one, so I would listen to it over and over again. And so when Diane Paulus sort of approached me and said, you know, the Gershwin estate has given us permission to do this and we'd like you to play best. It was another sort of full circle moment for me. And a piece that had comforted me while I was at Juilliard was now a piece that was going to challenge me. It was an incredible experience. It really was. But it was hard to get through because it's not I don't think it's a role that's meant to be sung that many times in a week. After every show I do, there's always a bit of time where one has to heal.

52:22Audra McDonald:And that was one of those times. And also just because of everything that Bess went through. With Daddy and Mama standing by

52:46I stand in the eye I think the next one I'm going to bring up is another one of those that terrified you to a degree. I think you said you couldn't see yourself doing the part, but obviously you did it very well because it was another Tony for you. And that is the first one that I had the opportunity to ever see you in in person. And I'll never forget it. I somehow bumbled into like seats right up front and got to see you as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson's Bar and Grill. This is her performing at a club in the last months of her life, of her just 44 years. Yeah. And obviously such a distinctive voice, but also she's just kind of a shell of a person at that point.

53:36And the way you played her, I mean, it was, I know it sounds idiotic as an audience member, but like you would sort of stumble into the audience. It was pretty, pretty freaking believable and powerful to watch you so up close do something like that. Can you take us into why that one was so, you know, what aspects of it gave you the most greatest challenge in that one? Well, finding her voice, finding how to speak like Billie Holiday and how to sing like her. And I saw you guys had the clip, but I figured it out by imitating my grandmother because I used to imitate my grandmother to my grandmother.

54:18Audra McDonald:She didn't enjoy that very much. She didn't enjoy that at all. But when I was a little kid, I used to do that. I don't know why. There's a lot of audio recordings of Billie Holiday speaking, whether through interviews or there's a lot of when she was rehearsing with her band, there was a bandmate that would press record just in in the rooms that they were rehearsing, not even actually in the recording studio. And she just would go off on all these tangents and you could hear she was either drunk or high or sometimes she was sober. But I judged her a lot until I really, really, really, really started to research this woman and understood the pain that this woman was in, the way she had been misused, the trauma that she endured from a very, very early age.

55:04She was self-medicating and then, you know, addicted. In all that was the brilliant artist that she was. And so when I play a role, you kind of become their defender, right?

55:16Audra McDonald:You know, even if you're playing a villain, you have to understand why the villain doesn't think that they're a villain. You know, that they usually think that they're just in doing whatever it is that they do. And so for me, playing Billie Holiday was about being her greatest supporter and defender. Because the show is set up the way it is where there's no fourth wall, the audience is a member of the, is a character in the play. And people have come up to me since then and said, oh, I was there the night that you asked someone for a cigarette. And I'm like, yeah, I did that every night. Or I was there the night you kind of wandered through the house or you fell down.

55:51I was there the night you fell down. I'm like, no, that was a part of the show. Yeah, it happened every night. And it's such a slow motion sort of car wreck, that show, the train wreck.

56:02Audra McDonald:She's just, you know, she starts out somewhat sober and then she just sort of crumbles as the night goes on. I've heard people talk about that one of the toughest things as an actor is to play drunk because it can be ridiculous. People sometimes have tried to do it by actually getting drunk. Oh, yeah, no, I couldn't. I heard about some of the techniques actually that you, would you share? Well, some is I wouldn't, I certainly wouldn't drink, but what I would do is I'd put a bit of gin, which is one of her favorite liquors. I'd put gin like here and on my tongue so that I had the smell of it. And I put it behind my ears.

56:44I also wore her perfume as well. Tweed was the perfume she wore. But that just so I'd sort of have enough of a sense of it.

56:52Audra McDonald:I did in my own bedroom before I opened the show, I drank and then tried to do the show just in my bedroom. No. But drunk people are never trying to show you that they're drunk. They're trying to appear sober. And so Billie has things that are on her mind that she wants to talk about. So that's the thing. That's the key with playing drunk. You actually articulate more, right? or you try to articulate more, you know. You try to get your point across a little because you're trying to overcome being inebriated, you know. I also got a kick out of it. I mean, you said at one point, quote, it's about a woman trying to get through a concert performance, which I know something about.

57:37Yeah, absolutely.

57:40Audra McDonald:Yes, yes, yes, yes.

57:46Money, you've got lots of friends. They're crowding round your door. When you're gone and spending hours, they don't come no more. Again, just briefly touching on the other great ones of these last handful of years, really the last decade here. Shuffle Along was a show sort of about a forgotten chapter of Broadway history, right, in which all black casts flourished in this particular production. And you're the star of the show within the show, this character Lottie G. The show itself was almost entirely an all black production, plus Brooks Ashermanskis. Yeah, Brooks Ashermanskis. Blacks and Brooks.

58:47He's so wonderful. Directed by George C. Wolfe, choreographed by Savion Glover. Like this is the cream of the crop. Yeah. And it was also, I know, a challenging time again where life sometimes intrudes on or overlaps with a production. But I think you've alluded to the fact that what happened with this one was not necessarily empathized with by others or understood. It was a, you know. Yeah. Yeah. No, I was doing Shuffle Along. I was very excited to be a part of it with, you know, Billy Porter, Brian Stokes Mitchell, Josh Henry, Brandon Victor Dixon, Adrian Warren and myself and then choreographed by Savion Glover.

59:29I mean, come on. And the incredible George Wolfe telling this story based on a true story of what happened in history, you know, with this huge success of a show that was, you know, written by and produced by and performed by black people, you know, incredible black people you know songs I'm just wild about Harry you know incredible story 19 yeah 1921 and that just was historic um and I didn't know the history of this moment in time and so we were on our way telling the story doing the show and uh And I, we all, everybody was getting stomach flus and I thought I had it too. And then I was asking everybody, how long is yours last?

1:00:18And they're like, oh, like three days. It's like, I'm still, it turns out I was pregnant. I didn't know. And I wouldn't have thought I was pregnant. I was, you know, 45 and a half at the time. And I ended up, I had a baby. I mean, but it wasn't the plan. and so the show ended up having to, the show was closed and it was the reason they said is because I was pregnant and so that was a hard thing to shoulder. You know, I don't like going into it, but it's a hard thing to shoulder. You don't want to be the reason that people don't have a job, but I've got an incredible little girl, nine-year-old little girl now.

1:00:58Absolutely worth it. Yeah.

1:01:03Third of the three Terrence McNally ones, Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune 2019, you and Michael Shannon, woman comes to New York with dreams of being an actress, but things don't necessarily work out. You've called it an incredibly hopeful play about love after there is no hope of love. How does the show begin? So for those of you who don't know the story of Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune, written by Terrence McNally. It's a woman who's a waitress and a man who's a fry cook. And he convinces her, and they're both middle-aged, he convinces her to go out on a date one night. The show starts, lights come up, and they're at her apartment after the date

1:01:43Audra McDonald:in the middle of making love. And so it starts two naked people on stage making love. That's how the show starts. You know, the whole play takes place in this one evening in her apartment. And the most naked moment of the show is the end of the show when they've gone through everything. She's tried to kick him out I don't know how many times. They've fallen back in bed together. They've fought. She's slapped him. He's made her a sandwich. I mean, everything has happened. He's like, this can work. And he has this wonderful line. He says, everything I want is in this room. And she's very damaged.

1:02:25Audra McDonald:He's very damaged. But he's all gung-ho and 100 % in on this relationship or the possibility of this relationship in love. And she's very afraid. The most intimate moment and the most vulnerable moment and the most naked moment happens at the very end of the show where they're in their robes, the sun is coming up, and they're brushing their teeth together. And even though it starts with them completely naked, they don't really know each other yet, and full making love. That's the beauty of what Terrence McNally does with this piece. And it was a challenge to, and it was very scary to do it, to play that role.

1:03:06But I had an incredible partner on stage with me, Michael Shannon. He's one of the greatest actors I've ever worked with. And we had an intimacy choreographer, a director,

1:03:16Audra McDonald:who made sure we were very safe. It was another situation where I leapt at something that was very scary and was so glad I did. I had no idea if I would be any good. I still don't know if I was any good or not, but I learned a lot. And I'd never done a two-hander before. It was just the two of us on stage the entire—I've done like one-woman shows. I've done cast of thousands, but I'd never done a two-hander. And I felt very protected. We were very, very protected. The ushers, the people in the front of the house, they were bulldogs. They took such good care of us. They would see a camera and they, you know, yank at it or whatever.

1:03:52Audra McDonald:They were, I felt very, very, very, very, very safe. Just these different types of challenges, I think, are instructive for folks to hear about. Another one, I don't believe prior to the next one, Ohio State Murders 2022, 2023, had you ever played a person at two very different points in their life in the same show? No, no. So this is the first Broadway production of a playwright. Adrienne Kennedy. Adrienne Kennedy, who was 91 at the time you guys did this. Broadway debut at 91. She'd been writing for 70 years, had written a million beautiful, incredible plays. It had been discovered, not discovered, but Edward Albee was a big champion of hers.

1:04:35Audra McDonald:This was the first time one of her plays had ever been produced on Broadway. And it's basically a woman looking back at her time in college when traumatic things had happened to her. Yes. And she was one of the first, and this was true in her life, she was one of the first couple of years when they had finally integrated the dormitories at Ohio State. She was one of the first classes that that happened and it was not necessarily welcomed by everybody. And so it's about sort of the racism and the trauma that she dealt with when she was at Ohio State in the 40s. and had been written with the expectation that it would be two different actresses.

1:05:12Audra McDonald:Different actresses playing Suzanne as a young woman, and Suzanne as an older woman who's been asked to come back to Ohio State to discuss the violent imagery in her work. But Kenny Leon, who directed it, and I asked Adrienne Kennedy, who's very much alive and we were talking to on a daily basis. She was too ill, not ill, but it was not good for her to travel. She lives in Virginia, so she was never able to come and see, but her family came and saw the show. If we could have one actress play both the old and the young Suzanne, so it was a very, it was a big challenge to go in and out of narrating the story and then slipping in and being the story.

1:05:58Is there a secret? Is there sometimes maybe clothing or shoes or something that helps you to go into one character and then go into another? With that one, I tried to use the language. Her poetry and her language is very dense, but incredibly descriptive.

1:06:15Audra McDonald:So I would use the language and the rhythm of the language to kind of lull me into going back in time as Suzanne, as these tragic, horrific events happened to her. Yeah. Your most recent appearance on Broadway was in the role that people describe as Lear for actresses on Broadway, right, or on any theater. This is Mama Rose, the original stage mother in Gypsy, a part that had previously been played by Ethel Merman, Angela Lansbury, Tyne Daly, Bernadette Peters, Patti LuPone, never before by a person of color. Yeah, yeah. And it seemed to provoke conversations. I guess I wonder what you made of, this is before you even stepped on stage, But people, you know, I guess the one argument was that would these dreams of a mother of young children, I mean, they were sort of far-fetched enough when it's a white character in that time period, given societal ceilings at the time or whatever, the bigotry of the period or whatever, did it change it to make the character black?

1:07:23I know you have a very interesting answer to that, and I wonder if you'd share it. Well, I don't think it changes it at all. We didn't change one single solitary note. We didn't change one single solitary line in that show. There were black performers at that time.

1:07:38Audra McDonald:There were black child performers at that time. And why wouldn't any mother, you know, you can question her ability as a mother. I mean, maybe that's up for debate for some. But I contend that she loved those girls more than life itself. And she was determined to give them a better future than the one that she had had. She's also dealing with mama trauma, being abandoned by her mother. And that's something that she was never going to, and she gets abandoned, but she was never going to, she was never going to cut the umbilical cord with either of those kids. And why shouldn't she reach as far as she can and push those children as far as she can and hope for and demand success?

1:08:24Audra McDonald:Why shouldn't she have just because she was a black woman? That's ridiculous, you know. And I guess the other thing with this is, setting that aside, the playing of that part, you've done some, again, we've been through them, some of these most grueling vocally, physically, all of that. But I think you've said this was the most exhausting. Yes. Bring us to him. Is it just because she's so intense? Well, she drives the whole thing. She never shuts up. I mean, she's the engine for that entire show. and she states in the very beginning of the show what she's going to do and then she does it. You know, she has to face the consequences of some of the, you know, of her pursuing it with such fervor and with disregard for how it makes everybody else feel as she, you know, pursues this dream for her kids and for herself.

1:09:20Audra McDonald:But she states at the very beginning of the show, you know, I'm going to get my kids and I'm going to get them out and she's going to be a star. and she does it. She does it against all odds and she refuses to take no for an answer. A lot of times you can play roles where things happen to your character and you're reacting and things do happen to Rose but Rose is also that engine and so that's just a hard thing to do and then the hardest thing you have to do in the entire show is Rose's turn and that happens at the end of it already a very long evening of storytelling and it also So because she's, you know, everybody always talks in the show, they talk about, you know, mama's yelling, mama's screaming, mama's doing this.

1:10:06So it's not like I can underplay any of those moments.

1:10:10Audra McDonald:Everybody's commenting on what a loud mouth she is and all that. So you have to play that. So I actually found the speaking to be more fatiguing than the singing. And actually at some nights, by the time I got to Rose's turn, I was looking forward to the fact that that would then deplete her. And everything in the show leads up to that moment. I needed everything to get to the right place for Rose's turn. But then sometimes I would look forward to the release that it would happen for her at the end of it. Not that there are many roles that would call upon somebody as much as that one does. but if there were things that other people found draining, what was your kind of method to getting through the grind of, I guess, any role, but particularly that one?

1:10:56Don't look at the top of the mountain when you start up the mountain. Just what's the next step? And that's just an important lesson for any role you're playing, too. You don't want to play the end, right?

1:11:07Audra McDonald:I didn't come on this stage, you know, thinking that, I don't know, I'm going to, I'm trying to think of something crazy, but like come on the stage thinking that, you know, I'm going to fall off and die tonight. I mean, that's, that's very, you know, morbid, but you don't think that you're just like, you just like, you just take your next step. Right. And that's what we do in life. And that's, and that's what the characters do as well for Rose. It's just what, what's in front of me. That's an obstacle that I got to get out of my way to keep going. If I stepped on that stage thinking Rose's turn is at the end of this night, I'd never take another step you know or that you have to do it and then Rose's turn is happening again in a couple of hours for me that was always about like you know you finish the show take off the makeup drink something no no no no something yes yes to hydrate children hydrate I could never take naps in between because I was always afraid that my voice would drop too much.

1:12:09Audra McDonald:But I would sit down for a little bit with the dog. I would have my little time with the doggie and then a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup and then off to the races again. Yeah. You either got it or you ain't. And boys, I got it. You like it? Yeah! Well, I got it. Some people got it and make it pay. Some people can't even give it away. This people's got it and this people's got it. The last thing we're going to talk about is wonderful Gilded Age, and then we're going to turn it over to close it out with some student questions. But Dorothy Scott. Yes. A member of a late 19th century New York upper class family that happens to be black.

1:13:07Yes. A thing that was not necessarily widely documented throughout history. That there was a segment of the population of New York that was leading lives like these characters. And in this show from Julian Fellows, who was coming off of Downton Abbey and goes into this, your character is the wife of Arthur, a pharmacist. played by John Douglas Thompson, the mother, and by the way, I should say a formerly enslaved man. That's how recent history we're coming off of there. The mother of Peggy, Denae Benton, who was in one of maybe my favorite thing I've ever seen on Broadway, Natasha Pierre and the Great Comet of 1812.

1:13:49But your character also a gifted pianist, a opinionated woman, and has amazing things to say that we'll come to in the third and most recent season. But when you were approached about this, or even when you heard about this project, what did you make of it? What was exciting? What was worrying about a project like this? Well, I heard about it. And the reason I heard about it, because we were all hearing about it, but also because I was working with Christine Bransky on a daily basis on The Good Fight. And so I knew that she had been cast. I'm like, how are you going to do this? You're still doing The Good Fight, right?

1:14:21How are you going to do both of these? And I had no idea that I would ever end up being a part of it. And I was excited about it. I love Downton Abbey. I was also curious. I was like, okay, so I know that Danae has been cast as this character. How are Black people going to be portrayed? I mean, that was my biggest concern.

1:14:44Audra McDonald:It was like, how are they going to do this in a way that's, I don't want to even say forward thinking, but correct and not offensive. So that was in the back of my mind. And then I got a call from my agent saying they want you to play Danae's mother and I had not seen a single script and I was like oh that's interesting well what are they what are they thinking they said well we have some some scenes that we can show you and the scene that they showed me or they they let me read was the I don't know if you guys watched the show the episode the episode um in the first season where Marion brings the shoes.

1:15:22And I read that scene and I went, oh, that's what we're doing. I'm on board. I'm absolutely on board. Also, because I loved the idea of not just seeing, you know, seeing us in 3D in all of the ways that Black people have existed, you know, and this part of American history that's glossed over. After Reconstruction, well, Reconstruction happened and communities were being built. You know, Reconstruction, if you actually look at it now,

1:15:54Audra McDonald:it looks a little forward thinking. You know, I mean, some of the ideas that were in Reconstruction, people, you know, immediately in the South, that bore Jim Crow, you know, the Jim Crow South, because they didn't like seeing, you know, formerly enslaved people were getting citizenship and getting the ability to vote and holding office and owning property, educating themselves, all of that. And so to see a thriving community with education and social causes and community and culture and success, I think is just important to let the world know that these communities absolutely did exist and thrived.

1:16:40I wanted to be a part of helping to sort of like reveal that history to America and whoever else is watching across the globe. I know you've spoken with some admiration and maybe even commenting that it's, it might have been harder to do this early in your career. Absolutely. That Denae Benton, who's, I don't know how old, but young and - She's young, but she's brilliant. Really kind of asserted what was important to her in a, it's a, probably her first major leading screen or major screen role. And she made sure that it was going to be. Absolutely. When they were figuring out Peggy's story in the beginning and, and we've got incredible, it's, you know, it's not just, it's Julian Fellowes show, but, you know, we've got our incredible Sonia Warfield, who's also an executive producer and she's an incredible writer.

1:17:33She writes everything with Julian Fellowes. And we also have Dr. Erica Dunbar, who is the sort of historical consultant and another brilliant woman, both of these women, brilliant black women who are making sure that it's accurate, it's authentic, that, you know, we're being shown in the light that that's right. And because Danae, she has a brilliant mind as well as being, you incredible person, soul, and incredible talent, she was not afraid to speak her truth about what she believed Peggy should be. And she was willing to risk being said, okay, this is your first TV show. You don't know what you're talking about.

1:18:21Get out of here. She, you know, she spoke up and she said, well, she should be this.

1:18:26Audra McDonald:And I believe that we really should model her after her, Ida B. Wells and they were thinking that as well, but just to make sure that she was portrayed in a dignified way. And I wouldn't have had the courage to do that at the beginning of my career. And I'm so proud of Danae for trusting herself enough and empowering herself in that way to say that this is how I believe the character should be played. They listened. And I know that you and the other cast also, obviously, as you say, there's historical consultants and things like that. But you have to answer a lot of questions as an actor, actor, actress about things that maybe you wouldn't in other situations have to think about.

1:19:12I mean, this is, again, because it's not particularly well documented this time and kind of segment of black life at that time. I saw things where you're talking about I had to learn how a black woman of my character's stature would eat, in which way would she address her husband? Would she walk on the street or not walk? On and on and on. And I mean, it sounds like you are certainly very thorough with your research and prep anytime. But I mean, this one, you had to dig, right? Well, we had to dig, absolutely.

1:19:43Audra McDonald:And we have these consultants to make sure that we are doing things correctly. And that's, you know, there's black women of that period, but women in that period as well, you know. Or I think Denae was telling the story, I guess Julian watches when we're filming. he watches from London so he's able to see what we're doing on the set and notes will come in and one was like that handkerchief is not folded in the proper way for someone of that time you know or the way you hold a cup or the fact that we have to wear gloves at certain times or you know all the sort of what was considered proper and of the time is very very very very very specific and watched and surveyed with a fine tooth comb so that we're really presenting an authentic, as much as we can, an authentic version of what life would have been like during that time.

1:20:35And I'll just note that you go out in the most recent, but certainly not the last season, but the third and most recent season, the finale, your character tells off Felicia, Rashad's character rather memorably. Was that, I mean, over the course of the three seasons, I'm sure there have been a wide variety of moments that you've relished, but I would imagine that's up there. It is. And it was scary because I've known Felicia for as long as I have and worked with her. I was very nervous about that scene because I understood the character. I understood what Dorothy was going through in that moment, wanting to be a mama bear and protect her daughter and finally tell off this woman who has caused my daughter so much pain.

1:21:19But then there's Audra, who has always looked up to Felicia. And, you know, I adore her and I've learned so much from her. And she's a friend and a confidant, all these things. And so the thought of me yelling at her just was scary. So I kept going up on my lines. And I was like, I'm not, I don't do this. I don't know. And I realized I'm nervous because I have to yell at Felicia. And I also don't want her to yell back. There was a part of this thing. She's going to yell back. As much fun as it was, it was nerve-wracking for me. And I was quite relieved when they finally turned around the camera and did Felicia's coverage because I was like, whew.

1:22:01Yeah, it was scary. But it was fun. It all worked out. Yeah, and we're already filming fourth season right now. Yeah, so we're in it. We're back in our corsets. Yeah. So if we can start to bring the mics toward the student questioners, while that's happening, I've got four rapid fire, just quickie randoms. Is there a song that scares you? All of them. There's not, is there one though that you're like, I, you will sing privately, but not publicly, or you're not yet ready to perform in front of others? That I've already done and failed. Yeah, I have this crazy dream that I want to play Sweeney in Sweeney Top.

1:22:46My husband just played it, and he was amazing. I want to do it too. So, yeah, so the epiphany. Okay. Where do you keep your Tonys? Six of them. I have a lot of kids, right? And my house is filled with Legos and toys and paint and cats and, you know, and books and dragon eggs everywhere. And so we put them up on our main bookshelf in the living room, but we knocked them all over. Because we still have like, you know, we have the kids artwork or, you know, their little things that they're proud of and pictures of our family and stuff like that. And so they're just all kind of, it looks like someone kind of just sort of tossed them out.

1:23:35and I like that because it's amazing. I'm so honored, but I still have to be a good person. I still need to be me. My kids still mean the world to me.

1:23:47Audra McDonald:My family still means the world to me, so I don't want it to be everything, so that's why they're on their sides like that. A person who we will not name recently had some things to say about opera and ballet.

1:24:02Any thoughts?

1:24:08I just, I just, there, I mean, why? I mean, there are a million things one can say, but just, I don't, I don't, I don't understand. I don't understand what that was about.

1:24:21Audra McDonald:And opera and ballet are very, very beautiful, relevant, gorgeous forms of expressing the human condition and hallelujah that they exist. Right. All right. Let's go to Anna Sprague. Hi, I'm Anna. That's my mom's name. Hi, Anna. Hi. First, before I ask my question, I saw you in Gypsy and Life Changing. Oh, thank you. My question is, what do you find most fulfilling about being a storyteller and an artist? I say this all the time, and the answer hasn't changed, so I'm going to say it to you. I love what I call, because theater is my church, the holy communion between the artist and the audience.

1:25:10Audra McDonald:We kind of become one, and it keeps us in touch with our humanity, and so it fills me up. That's great. Anna's in the BFA writing for film and TV track. We're now going to go to Melody Hancock, who's a vocal performance in music education. Hi. Hi. Hi, Melody. My question for you is, do you feel your training in classical voice has prepared you to take on roles that are more in the space of like the more modern, beltier style that Broadway is seeming to head into? Broadway goes back and forth, back and forth. I mean, now having been a part of the, you know, Broadway for the 30 years that I've been doing it, sometimes there's Phantom of the Opera and sometimes there's, you know, Hamilton and everything in between.

1:26:02Audra McDonald:What I found is that my classical training has helped me to sustain a healthy career to be able to do whatever it is that I want to do with my voice in a healthy way. Even when I was doing Billie Holiday, I was warming up classically.

1:26:25From the theater performance track, Elias Feldman. Hi. Hi. I'm a theater performance major. As somebody who started out in theater and transitioned into film, how did you find that your preparation for a role changed between theater and film, if at all? I don't think your preparation changes. It shouldn't. And for me, it didn't. The thing that I find challenging coming from theater about television and film is there's usually not a lot of rehearsal. I mean, we even have their shirts from the 42nd Street rehearsal studios that say rehearsal is the best part. And so that time to really sort of marinate and try things, I mean, you get to do it, you know, take after take after take.

1:27:15Audra McDonald:But that sort of special sacred time where you're figuring things out with everybody else in your scenes, you kind of don't have that as much in film and television. I find that it's more you're on your own. So the challenge is to be able to do all that work on your own and then hold on to it as you're sitting in between setups and you're waiting for them to shoot your coverage or you go to lunch before you finish the scene. So to be able to continue to get into the place that you need to be without having, you know, the rehearsal or the, okay, and we're going and we're starting from the beginning of the show and going to the end.

1:27:57Audra McDonald:That's what I find the most difficult part of prep. And so that's the work that you really, really, really, really, really have to do all on your own. Yeah. From Film and Media Studies, Axel McKenzie. Hi. Hi, how are you? First of all, I love you. This question. Thank you. This question is partially from my best friend too. How do you decide what roles to take on and how do you maintain your voice through that? If a role scares me, my yeses are very quick. When someone offers me a role, I get a feeling in the pit of my stomach. Maybe some people call it dread or I don't know, but it's fear or something or fight or flight.

1:28:39Audra McDonald:I don't know what it is, but it tells me immediately that I'm going to learn something from that role. And it doesn't mean I'm going to succeed. It means I'm going to learn something. And that's most important to me. There's going to be evolution. And I'm going to know more than when I started. You know, so that's why I do that. I still take voice lessons. I still, I have to warm up very carefully. I don't party. I don't, I mean, I have wine now because I'm not doing a show now, but I don't drink when I'm doing a show. I don't, I don't party. I don't talk a lot. I mean, you have to live like a monk when you're doing a show.

1:29:18Audra McDonald:You really, really, really do so as to protect yourself. Our vocal cords, you can fit them on the sides of a dime. Do you know that? That's how big they are. And they're the only pair you'll ever have. So your body's a temple and you have to protect it. Yeah. Last question will come from Sophia Previtt from Psychology Track. Hi. Hi. Which of the many roles that you have done is like the one you're most proud of? I look at my roles like children. Do you know what I mean? Like a mom looks at her kids. You don't really ever say you have a favorite. You're not supposed to say you have a favorite kid.

1:29:57Audra McDonald:I like the fact that I keep staying out of any box that anybody tries to put me in. That my instrument can do many things. That's what's most important to me. Please join me in thanking for this amazing opportunity and night, the great Audra McDonald. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Everything's coming up. Roses and affidavits. Everything's coming up. Sunshine and Santa Claus. Everything's gonna be bright, light, and lollipops Everything's coming up Roses for me and for you

1:30:56Thanks for listening to Awards Chatter. We really appreciate it and would really appreciate you taking just a minute more to subscribe to the podcast and to leave us a rating and review on your podcast app. And to follow us on Twitter and Instagram, where our handle is at Awards Chatter. On those platforms, we announce upcoming guests and provide details about special live recordings of the podcast that you can attend. Until next time, thanks again for tuning in.