A ‘space of lift and joy’: The Broadway legend and screen star will visit San Diego this weekend to perform some Broadway favorites with the San Diego Symphony — between filming “The Gilded Age' and prepping for the “Gypsy' revival.
Audra McDonald is one of the most decorated performers on American stages and screens today, with six Tony Awards, a few Grammys and even an Emmy under her belt. She's also been seen on TV, including"Private Practice,""The Good Fight,""A Raisin in the Sun," and most recently, HBO's"The Gilded Age."
"I am also looking at what's going on with each character in each song as I sing it, and when I sing it in the program. For me it does in some ways feel like music theater. It feels like a musical theater performance for me. So I make sure that I delve into each character as though I were on stage eight times a week in a show on Broadway," McDonald said.
"There is something about, for me personally, when I sing, that I feel that I leave my body for a little bit and I kind of go into this space of lift and joy, even if the song is perhaps a sad song, there's something that just gets spiritual about it for me, that takes me to my happy place," McDonald said.
"My parents were very specific about what I could do when I was a kid, and doing junior theater. They didn't want me to do sort of stereotypical roles or roles that were just, you know, be seen as demeaning for a young Black girl to play. They didn't need me to do any of that," McDonald said."It was because of that I was putting myself forward for what felt right, and not, I thought what they assumed I would only be right for. And that was an important part of my journey.
In addition to the role being incredibly popular , McDonald said that it's easy to think Rose is just a bad mother.For a role like Mama Rose, McDonald said that she also has to separate her own work from that of other actors. "It's true, your heart is now running around outside your body," McDonald said."In one sense, that's a terrifying and exhausting and anxiety-provoking thing to think of, but the other side of that is I have a depth of love and emotion and fierceness that I did not have before I became a mother."
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