Ruth Leon recommends… Audra McDonald at the Palladium
Ruth Leon recommendsAudra McDonald at the Palladium
Audra McDonald has been nominated for Tony Awards eight times, and won six. In addition to her Tony Awards she has two Grammy Awards, and an Emmy Award. President Barack Obama awarded her the National Medal of Arts in 2016 and she was inducted into the American Theater Hall of Fame in 2017.
She is, in other words, something else, something special. The musical theatre is truly blessed to have such a star, such a singer, such an actor, and such a very nice woman, still performing on the Broadway stage.
If you are not familiar with her work, I promise you will relish her performance of these two songs from a concert she gave at the London Palladium in September. This is “I Could Have Danced All Night” from My Fair Lady, and “Will He Like Me?” from She Loves Me.
Nobody in the musical theatre, on either side of the Atlantic, does it better.
Honestly, she was just another Juilliard student. Hard to stand out when your fellow students are people like Gil Shaham, Sarah Chang, Christian McBride, Alan Gilbert, etc.
Except that she’s gone onto greater lasting stardom than literally everyone you mentioned…