Broadway’s Audra McDonald returns to her Valley roots with Modesto show

In the rarefied air of Broadway royalty, none sits on a higher perch than Audra McDonald.

Last year, the 45-year-old performer became the winningest actor in Tony Award history by taking home her sixth trophy. Yet the singer and actress has her roots firmly planted in the Central Valley. And, not unlike countless local performers, she got her first taste of the stage thanks to community theater groups.

For Fresno-raised McDonald, it was with the Good Company Players and its Junior Company, performing in dinner theater shows. She said that experience built the foundation for her entire career.

“Absolutely the Central Valley shaped my performing career. Because of the Good Company Players, growing up there and spending most of my childhood there, I was either in the main stage shows or part of the junior company performing. It’s basically how it all started,” she said in an interview with The Modesto Bee.

McDonald will make one of only two California stops on her current tour in Modesto on Sept. 5 at the Gallo Center for the Arts. Her other state date will be at the Hollywood Bowl, and then her tour will take her to the Sydney Opera House.

Born in West Berlin in 1970 while her father was stationed there with the Army, McDonald moved with her family to Fresno in 1972. She started singing with the Junior Company by age 9. By high school, the city had opened a new performing arts magnet school, Roosevelt School of the Arts, and she enrolled. Afterward, she went on to attend the prestigious Juilliard School in New York City.

Since then, McDonald has carved out a singular career for herself by showing off her talents in diverse media. On Broadway, she won her record-breaking Tony last year for her portrayal of Billie Holiday in the Broadway production of “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill.” Her previous Tony wins were for “Carousel” (1994), “Master Class” (1996), “Ragtime” (1998), “A Raisin in the Sun” (2004) and “Porgy and Bess” (2012).

As a singer, she has earned Grammy awards for best classical album and best opera recording, both in 2008. And as an actress, she received two Emmy nominations for outstanding supporting actress in a movie (2001’s “Wit”) and outstanding actress in a television movie or miniseries (2008’s “A Raisin in the Sun”). TV fans will recognize her from her several seasons as a regular on the ABC medical drama “Private Practice.”

McDonald spoke with The Bee while in the midst of a run of the Eugene O’Neill play “A Moon for the Misbegotten” at the Williamstown Theatre Festival in Massachusetts. The production also reunites her onstage with her husband, Will Swenson. It is their first production together since they met in 2007 while performing in the Broadway musical “110 in the Shade.” They married in 2012. The New York Times praised the couple’s current production, saying McDonald had “become to the American theater what Meryl Streep is to film.”

The actress actually co-stars with Streep in the new film “Ricki and the Flash,” which opened earlier this month. She also is set to star in the new big-budget, live-action adaptation of “Beauty and the Beast,” starring Emma Watson. McDonald finished filming her part, as the wardrobe Garderobe, last month.

While McDonald said she always will consider Broadway home, the actress discussed with The Bee her other projects, her social activism and her advice to young performers.

Q: What drew you to the production of “A Moon for the Misbegotten,” other than the opportunity to work with your husband?

A: Well, I’ve never gotten a chance to work a Eugene O’Neill play before. I worked in Williamstown once before, about 11 years ago, and it’s very beautiful and fulfilling and a creative experience. It seemed like a wonderful situation to come up here and work on an iconic role by an iconic playwright in a beautiful setting with my husband.

Q: You got your start with the Good Company Players and its Junior Company. What impact did a program like that have on you?

A: Well, I spent my entire childhood on stage, basically, learning not only about the craft of performing but everything that goes into the discipline – the etiquette that is necessary both on stage and off. I grew up in a theatrical setting with such a diverse group of people that came together. In any theater company, there is an incredible diversity, so as a result, it was just an incredible place to learn. My entire theatrical foundation was built there. Everything I know about theater, I first learned there. I honed it, maybe, as the years went on, but it was all learned at the Good Company Players.

Q: You are the winningest actor in Tony history. What did that honor mean to you, given the award’s storied history?

A: It hasn’t sunk in. It’s such an incredible honor and something that’s so not any dream that I ever had. I don’t think it will ever sink in.

Q: You seem to float pretty seamlessly between Broadway, Hollywood and your own solo concert schedule. What is it creatively you get from both your solo career and acting career that is different?

A: I think concertizing, you take down the fourth wall and get to not only communicate through the songs but you actually get to communicate with the audience. That forces you to be present in a very specific way; you can’t check out at all. Not that you can when you are playing a role, either. Also in concerts, by picking the different songs, you get to play a whole bunch of different roles in one show, which is also fulfilling and challenging in a way. They all inform each other.

Q: You’re also in film and going to be in the big live-action “Beauty and the Beast” as the wardrobe. What can you tell us about that production?

A: I am not at liberty to say much. The whole film will be pretty spectacular, but we’re kept pretty much under wraps.

Q: What attracts to you to your film roles, like your current film, “Ricki and the Flash”?

A: That was the chance to work with two legends – many legends, actually. Obviously, one was (director) Jonathan Demme, so the ability to work for him and learn from him. And then the other was the legend, the goddess, that is Meryl Streep. I can’t imagine anyone turning down that opportunity. Especially for a role like that where I got to really directly interact with her in a thorny and intimate way. (Streep plays the ex-wife of Kevin Kline’s character and McDonald plays his current wife.) I learned so much just watching her on set and watching how she prepares. You know, I wish I could say that I saw what made her tick, but it’s so seamless and so beautiful and so perfect. I don’t know how she does what she does. You just try to hold onto her coattails.

Q: You, of course, spent several seasons on TV in “Private Practice.” Would you ever consider returning to be a regular on a series again?

A: Sure, if the role was right and it didn’t take me too far away from my family. Absolutely.

Q: Over the years, you’ve been a very vocal supporter of various philanthropic and political causes. Last fall, you joined the board of the Covenant House, a group that helps homeless youths. You’ve also spoken out on marriage equality and Black Lives Matter on social media. Were you always comfortable speaking out, or is that something you feel you’ve grown into?

A: It’s something I’ve always felt comfortable about doing, but I think we just live in a different world now and people just probably didn’t know that I was speaking out as much as I was before. Maybe I didn’t have the profile that I do now – not that I have a huge profile. But also we’ve got social media. But these are not new views for me at all; these are views I was raised with. The need to be a voice for the voiceless and speak up, that’s what I want to teach my kid as well. But it’s certainly nothing new in terms of my beliefs.

Q: So, switching gears back to your concert, what can people expect from your show?

A: Modesto will be with a trio, and it will be an evening of great songs from the great American musical theater songbook. We’ll be going as far back as songs written in 1923 to songs written as recently as a few years ago and all the great composers in between. We try and get something quite varied – there are old songs, new songs, songs you might not have heard before, songs you’ve never heard me sing before. We try to get a variety of composers in there, too – composers you absolutely know and love and some new composers. You know, Broadway is an art form that is constantly changing and growing, and so we try to introduce new people from there as well.

Q: You made mention of your daughter (14-year-old Zoe Madeline Donovan) earlier. Is she interested in following you and pursuing music or performance?

A: She is musical, but I’m not quite sure what she is going to do. Whatever she wants to do is all that matters to me.

Q: What advice would you give young Central Valley students who have dreams of Broadway stardom?

A: Be on stage anywhere that they possibly can. That’s the most important training you can have. It doesn’t matter where they’re standing on stage – that experience is the same whether you’re on Broadway or the YMCA.

This story was originally published August 26, 2015 at 4:14 PM with the headline "Broadway’s Audra McDonald returns to her Valley roots with Modesto show."