SHUFFLE ALONG's Audra McDonald: The Intentionally Unglamorous Broadway Life

You would think that after six Tony Awards at least a smidge of glamour might have entered the world of Audra McDonald, but when profiling the self-described tomboy for New York Magazine, Jesse Green laments no sign of a tiara, a personal chef, or even off-stage make-up.

"She hates wearing gowns, consumes carbs in public, and, as Lonny Price, the director of LADY DAY AT EMERSON'S BAR AND GRILL often says, 'would rather chew a big bucket of glass than take a bow.'"

The Broadway star currently in rehearsals for SHUFFLE ALONG, OR, THE MAKING OF THE MUSICAL SENSATION OF 1921 AND ALL THAT FOLLOWED, George C. Wolfe's adaptation of the historic all-African-American musical that introduced the songwriting team of Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle, is even quick to add after describing her daughter Zoe as "a terrific little performer" that "she's under no illusions that performing is glamorous. How could she be?"

There's certainly little glamour in the way Green describes her recent voice lesson in "a 13-by-13 shoe box near Carnegie Hall" where he notes a slight defensive crouch and wide stance that gives the appearance of "a shot-putter about to let something heavy fly."

Her teacher of 20 years, Arthur Levy, instructs her to fling her arms in the air "like the Flying Nun" when she complains of something that feels "stuck in the middle" as she moves from lower to upper registers.

The move is merely a distraction from whatever negative thoughts may be blocking his student's success. After twenty years he's accustomed to McDonald's self-depreciating ways. ("I'm Judgy McJudgerson," she says.)

"The audience and I love what we're hearing. Pretend you do too," he insists.

McDonald has seen quite a bit of change on Broadway since the days when she had only one Tony, for playing Carrie Pipperidge in the 1994 revival of CAROUSEL; a then-rare instance where a non-white performer was cast in what was written as a white role.

She points out that along one block of 45th Street this spring, joining the long-running THE LION KING, are not only SHUFFLE ALONG, but also THE COLOR PURPLE, ECLIPSED and HUGHIE, with HAMILTON and ON YOUR FEET! one block north. The breakdown of jobs, onstage and off, creative and technical, is also clearly changing.

Her commitment to home life, and her 15-year-old daughter from her first marriage, has contributed to McDonald's regularity on Broadway, making her a visible symbol of its increasing diversity.

She and her second husband, Broadway star Will Swenson, live in a small semi-attached house in Inwood.

They are joined there at various times and on various schedules by Zoe, who spends half the week with her father, and by Swenson's two boys, Bridger and Sawyer, from his previous marriage. They have a larger home in Westchester, where McDonald's mother, Anna, a retired university administrator, resides.

The routines of motherhood have stabilized her, she says.

"I used to think I needed to have drama at all times or I wouldn't have the fuel for the performance," she comments. "Now I know that's not true. That doesn't mean I don't feel it, but I recognize it when I do, and put the brakes on. And if the performance isn't what it might have been once, I've learned not to judge myself as much."

"I don't see myself as a perfectionist. I mean, look at me! So if I can't hold that note the way I used to after only six hours of sleep, so be it. I just try to keep the truth in the storytelling. And when I'm singing now I'm also trying to reassure the audience: 'I got it, I'm good.'"

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