BEAUTY

for which she won her record six Tonys, the possibilities are as broad as her impressive vocal range.

“The opportunity to have the most decorated actor in American theater history is just extraordinary,” said Donald Jordan, founding artistic director of CityRep. “The breadth and diversity of Audra’s achievements is simply unprecedented ... and she is perhaps halfway through her career.”

McDonald garnered her first Tony for best actress in a featured role in a musical in the 1994 revival of Rodgers & Hammerstein’s “Carousel,” winning in the same category four years later as part of the original Broadway cast of “Ragtime.”

In 1996, she earned best actress in a featured role in a play for “Master Class,” Terrence McNally’s fictionalized late-life biopic of opera singer Maria Callas, and she was a repeat winner in the category in 2004, when she co-starred opposite Sean “Diddy” Combs and Phylicia Rashad in “A Raisin in the Sun.”

She received the Tony for best actress in a musical as the tragic title heroine in 2012’s “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess,” and she became the first performer to win six Tonys for acting and a Tony in all four acting categories in 2014 when she was named best actress in a play for portraying jazz singer Billie Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.”

She said she feels lucky and grateful for her long list of accolades, which also includes two Grammy Awards and an Emmy. “They are all unbelievable to me,” McDonald said. “I never in a million years thought that my life would unfold the way it has.”

Accepting the National Medal of the Arts from President Barack Obama in September was one of her most amazing career moments, she said, even if she was nervous she would give birth at the White House.

The performer was surprised to realize last spring that she was pregnant with her first child with husband Will Swenson; the couple welcomed their daughter, Sally James, in October. McDonald also has a 16-year-old daughter, Zoe, with her first husband, Peter Donovan, while Swenson has two sons from a previous marriage. “I balance it all by admitting that I have no idea how I am going to make it work every day, but knowing that there is a way,” McDonald said.

Dream come true

The celebrated soprano will launch her North American concert tour Friday in New Orleans before traveling to Oklahoma City for her CityRep show. She will give a master class at the University of Oklahoma on April 3 before heading back on the road.

“I basically plan on just giving them my perspective on life as an artist in this day and age, and to answer any questions they might have. I hope to inspire them,” she said.

Her tour will lead up to a dream come true: Her long-awaited West End debut in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” in June at London’s Wyndham’s Theatre. She originally was scheduled to reprise the role in England last summer but delayed the engagement when she learned she was pregnant.

“I love working in film and television, but I would never give up live performing. It’s where I first started, and it’s where I feel the most comfortable,” she said.

Disney redemption

Still, McDonald has developed an eclectic career on both stage and screen. On television, she starred as a doctor on the “Grey’s Anatomy” spinoff “Private Practice,” played Mother Abbess opposite Checotah native Carrie Underwood’s Maria in “The Sound of Music Live!” and occasionally teams with late-night host Jimmy Fallon to hilariously croon real-life Yahoo! Answers.

On film, she co-starred with Meryl Streep in “Ricki and the Flash,” appeared in the Woody Harrelson crime drama “Rampart” and is currently wowing as the court diva in the lavish opening number of Disney’s new blockbuster, “Beauty and the Beast.” The cinematic fairytale’s $174.8 million debut weekend broke several boxoffice records, including best March bow.

When the selfish prince (Dan Stevens) falls under the curse of an enchantress, McDonald’s opera singer character, Madame Garderobe, is transformed into a wardrobe eventually tasked with dressing Belle (Emma Watson) when the heroine stumbles upon the bewitched castle. Ewan McGregor, Ian McKellen, Emma Thompson and Stanley Tucci also play members of the prince’s household who are turned into household objects when he is turned into the Beast. “Getting to know that incredible cast and working together in our big ensemble scenes was my favorite,” McDonald said. “It was a joyous time.”

It was a particular joy for McDonald since she auditioned for a minor part in the “Beauty and the Beast” Broadway stage musical but didn’t get it.

“I am very lucky and happy about the way my career has unfolded,” she said. “When I look back on it now, I know that if I had been cast in the ensemble of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ back in 1993 on Broadway, then I wouldn’t have gotten cast in ‘Carousel,’ and wouldn’t have won a Tony Award, and met the people that I met, and started down my path, and so on and so on.

“It all happens for a reason!”