Audra McDonald’s exceptional versatility and wide range of performance artistry make her a once-in-a-generation talent. Though known world-wide, Fresno can claim bragging rights as the singer and actor’s childhood home. Despite her God-given ability and remarkable success, Audra credits her strong foundation in theater to the time she spent with Fresno’s Good Company Players (GCP), where she began her career in show business. Now, this extraordinary performer, not to mention the group’s most notorious alumna, is returning to the Central Valley to present a homecoming concert in celebration of the Good Company Players’ 50th Anniversary Season.

Although she was born in West Berlin, Germany, Audra’s family relocated to her father’s hometown of Fresno when she was young. From an early age, it was evident that performing was an innate part of Audra’s nature. “The acting/singing bug probably bit earlier than I have memory of being alive, if you were to ask my parents about how I grew up,” admits Audra. “I was constantly singing and dancing around the house. I was a very theatrical toddler and little girl. Sang in my church choir, sang in my school choir, and also did a lot of dancing lessons to channel my energy. I always felt most normal, most me, when I was performing,” she says.

Her parents were searching for an outlet to channel their daughter’s hyperactive, expressive, and emotional energy. “At the same time, I wanted to win a trophy for doing something because my sister had gotten a trophy for learning how to dive off of the diving board in our swimming pool,” Audra reminisces. “So my parents said, ‘Well, why don’t you audition for this little dinner theater? They’ve got this junior troupe called the Junior Company.’ They had seen a couple of shows at the theater and said, ‘Why don’t you go and audition and see how you do?’ I was nine and auditioned, and they accepted me as an alternate and understudy.”

She joined the company at that time. By autumn of that same year, the little girl had become a regular member of the troupe. Audra remained with Good Company Players until her graduation from Theodore Roosevelt High School in 1988. During her four years at the school, she also participated in the Roosevelt School of the Arts program. Being a member of GCP was immensely formative in helping to shape Audra’s career. “Really, all the basics of everything that I know about theater, I learned from Good Company Players. That goes for what you learned from being both on stage and off,” she elaborates.

Discipline is crucial in achieving success. “Disciplined in terms of rehearsing and being willing to give up other extracurricular activities that perhaps especially a teenager or a 12-year-old would want to do. For us in the Junior Company, we had to give up our Saturdays. We were rehearsing every single Saturday. We had to make sure that all our homework was done because every night, we were going to the dinner theater and we were performing in a show. You’d run home from school, get your homework done, and then run over to the theater to do the pre-show. If you were rehearsing in one of the big musicals, you were rehearsing as well for not just a few hours before you did the show, but you were rehearsing long hours after school as well. That meant your grades had to stay up. You had to be really smart about when you did your homework,” Audra explains.

She also gained knowledge of theater etiquette through her involvement with the Good Company Players. “I learned how to behave backstage. I learned you’re not supposed to talk backstage. I learned that you have to give your fellow artists the respect that they deserve when they’re on stage and not mess around backstage just because the energy’s not on you. That it’s a group effort. And then everything I learned about being on stage, everything about performing, how to speak on stage, how to project, how to focus, how to learn about the characters, everything. It was everything. It literally gave me my entire foundation for being a theater performer,” she said.

Audra continued to be a member of the Good Company Players until she left for New York shortly after graduating in August 1988, having been accepted into the prestigious Juilliard School. “I did do a show a month or two after I got accepted,” Audra recollects. “I’m fairly certain that Dan Pessano, who still is the managing director of Good Company Players, I think he might have come out and announced it to the audience that night, whatever show was happening at the theater. I remember a whole audience of people screaming when it happened, there was huge support and congratulations.”

The connections that Audra made at GCP in Fresno helped her establish herself in the Big Apple. “A man named Keith Stoner, who had done lots of shows at Good Company Players, had moved to New York a couple years before. He was the one who met me at the airport when I flew into New York. I stayed with him for a few days and he taught me how to use the subway. He took me to a McDonald’s for the first time. He was like, ‘All right. Now, you got to learn how New York people will act, so go in and order.’ And I was like, ‘They’re so mean.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah. That’s just New York. Get used to it,’” Audra recalls.

Keith taught Audra how to get to Juilliard and helped her move into her dorm. “It wasn’t even a dorm; it was a residential hotel. He taught me how to take the subway from where the residential hotel was down to Juilliard. He taught me everything I needed to know as a baby living on her own in New York City for the first time. That’s because of the relationship I developed with him at Good Company Players. He was such a friend and a mentor to me while I was at Good Company Players, and he is still a friend of mine to this day. In fact, my nickname for him is Ma. I call him Ma because of what a mom he was to me when I first got here,” she explains.

The young performing artist thrived in New York. Only one year after graduating from Juilliard, Audra McDonald won her first Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Musical for her role in Carousel (1994). Over the next four years, she was awarded two more Tony Awards in the same category for her performances in the Broadway premieres of Master Class (1996) and Ragtime (1998). This achievement left her with an unprecedented three Tony Awards before the age of 30. Her fourth Tony came for her performance in A Raisin in the Sun (2004). Her fifth award, and her first in the leading actress category, was given for her portrayal of the title role in The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess (2012). In 2012, Audra made Broadway history by winning a record-breaking sixth award for her outstanding performance as Billie Holiday in Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill. This role also earned her an Olivier Award nomination and led to her debut at London’s West End in 2017. As a result, she became the most decorated performer in the history of the Tony Awards—a title she still holds. In addition to setting the record for the most competitive wins by an actor, she is also the first person to receive awards in all four acting categories.

Her résumé and accomplishments in theater, television, and opera are both impressive and extensive. Audra has won two Grammy Awards and an Emmy Award. She made her opera debut at the Houston Grand Opera in 2006, where she starred in a double bill featuring the monodrama La voix humaine and the world premiere of Send. The following year, the recording of her Los Angeles Opera debut in Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny earned her two Grammy Awards for Best Opera Recording and Best Classical Album. Audra won a Primetime Emmy Award in 2015 for her hosting role in the Creative Arts Special Program on PBS’s Live From Lincoln Center. She has also received nominations for her performances in Wit, A Raisin in the Sun, and Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.

Furthermore, Audra maintains a successful career as a concert and recording artist, regularly performing at some of the world’s most prestigious venues. She has graced the stages of the Boston Symphony, Chicago Symphony, Cleveland Orchestra, Los Angeles Philharmonic, National Symphony, New York Philharmonic, Philadelphia Orchestra, and San Francisco Symphony. She made her debut at Carnegie Hall in 1998. Internationally, Audra has performed with the London Symphony Orchestra and the Berlin Philharmonic at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris. She has also appeared at London’s Palladium and the BBC Proms. Vogue praised her performance at the 2021 Met Gala as “heart-stopping.” Her best known television and film roles include The Good Fight, Private Practice, The Gilded Age (TV), and Respect (film). In 2015, she was recognized as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people and was awarded the National Medal of Arts, America’s highest honor for achievement in the field, by President Barack Obama.

Audra is known for her versatility; however, she believes that her approach does not stand out from the norm. “I work hard. I am very interested in many different parts of performing arts. Not just theater, but concertizing. Not just concertizing, but television. Not just television, but film. All of it feeds and informs every other bit of it. So I guess my approach isn’t myopic. Not in my view of who I am as an artist. I allow myself to venture and try different aspects of it, knowing full well that I may fail, but that it’s going to help me to evolve as an artist. I’m open to doing all of it, not just focusing on just concertizing or just theater or just classical music or just Broadway or just theater or just television,” says Audra.

Fear is the common factor that draws her into new projects amidst her vast breadth of work. “Any role that makes me nervous, that scares me, that I think that I might not be able to do. I’ve learned from all these years of doing it that that’s a sign in my body saying, ‘Lean in. You’re going to learn from that. That’s going to teach you something. That’s going to be difficult. Go to it.’” Audra listens to her inner voice and has mastered the process of following it. With that reasoning and approach, she is constantly improving her craft.

“Maybe this is just a natural evolution that happens as one ages and lives more life and spends more time on this planet, in this world, I’m more comfortable in my own skin in life. I think that reflects in my work,” she acknowledges. “I am, I think, more curious, and perhaps I’m learning to be less judgmental of myself and to give myself more grace, which then allows me to put myself out there a little more and make more mistakes and not be punished by myself for those mistakes. When you do that, there’s more learning that occurs, there’s more evolution that occurs. I find myself embracing letting go of perfection or the pursuit of perfection. There is no such thing. I believe that more now than I ever have before,” she says.

However, this doesn’t deter her from continuously striving towards new goals, both in her professional and personal life. “There’s a few roles that I still would like to pursue; there’s types of roles that I want to pursue,” Audra imparts. Although she can’t reveal them at the moment, she does admit, “There’s a part of me that would like to look into doing a little more Shakespeare. That’s something that intrigues me as well. Just things that continue to push the envelope and to push me as an artist.” And push her as a farmer—a goat farmer, to be specific.

“That’s my future. Learning more about being an adjacent goat farmer, meaning the farm next door to the goat farm. Literally a farm hand, learning to be a farm hand to help run my own farm.” Audra’s property in Portugal has become an oasis where she and her husband, Will Swenson, seek refuge. “And then our neighbors who live next door to us in Portugal, help them with their farm and their goats and sheep.” Although Audra did not grow up on a farm, it is evident that she has maintained a connection to the agricultural heritage of her childhood stomping grounds.

Audra McDonald in Concert will headline the 50th Anniversary Season of the Good Company Players. This once-in-a-lifetime concert, held for a unique event, will take place on the afternoon of Sunday, June 25th, at Warnors Theatre in Fresno. “It’s a chance to come home. It’s a chance to say thank you to the theater that literally, I don’t want to say altered, but put me on my path. I would not be who I am today as an artist, as a person, anything, without my years in Fresno, my years growing up at Good Company Players and growing up going to Roosevelt School of the Arts, and the people that I met who helped to shape me and guide me. I would not be where I am without that, and so this is a way for me to say thank you,” she states.

Those fortunate enough to obtain tickets for the Good Company Players’ highly anticipated homecoming concert featuring their most renowned former member can expect an exceptional performance. “Just think of it as being in the living room with me, singing songs they’ve heard me sing before, maybe songs that they’ve always wanted me to sing that I’ve never sung, going down memory lane. It’s a chance for me to come home and say thank you, and so that’s what I’m going to be doing from the stage through song and through stories,” Audra divulges. Watching Audra McDonald perform on the same stage where her remarkable career started is bound to be an unforgettable experience.

Editorial Director Lauren Barisic
Features Editor Ann T. Sullivan Whitehurst
Photographer Allison Michael Orenstein