BWW Reviews: Audra McDonald Live in Brookings

I had the privilege of attending Audra McDonald in concert on the campus of South Dakota State University on Monday February 23. In this article I will not be reviewing the work I saw nor will I be critiquing, I will simply be putting my experience into words. For those of you who could not I attend I hope that you can live vicariously though me, and for those of you who were lucky enough to be in the house that night I hope that I can in some way put all of the emotions you felt into words since I know it is surprisingly difficult to explain what we experienced that evening.

First, I feel I need to give you a little of my back-story with Audra. I have known about Audra since the age of 14 in 1998 when I discovered Ragtime. The Ragtime soundtrack became the soundtrack to my life. It was on repeat in my bedroom for years. I memorized every song. While my friends were gushing over the boy bands of the late 90's/early 2000's, I was obsessed with Audra. I purchased her solo albums and tried my best to emulate her vocal talents and her belting techniques. I would stand for hours in front of my mirror with a hairbrush in my hand finding the perfect character for her hauntingly beautiful song, Daddy's Son. She became my icon, my idea of perfection, and as I grew in my love for all things musical theatre my opinion of Audra grew. She is a SIX time Tony award winner. She is the real deal, in every sense. For the number of times I have been to New York City and the number of Broadway stars I have had the opportunity to see I had never seen Audra perform. That is, until Monday.

Sitting there in row H, mere feet from Ms. McDonald was without question one of the biggest thrills of my life. I was close enough to see her work, really work. I saw each expertly placed breath, each facial nuance, every emotion she brought forth. It was incredible. Seeing Audra is seeing a master a work. Art lovers travel far and wide to see the great works by the great painters, sports lovers spend thousands of dollars to see athletes at the top of their game compete in the super bowl. Seeing Audra do what she does best is seeing an athlete at the top of her game knock it out of the park.

She sang for ninety minutes straight in a black form hugging dress and killer heels. She sang everything from Gershwin to Gwon. She told us personal stories and half way through she invited us to sing I Could Have Danced All Night with her. When she sang one of my personal favorites, Stars and the Moon from Songs For A New World by Jason Robert Brown, I lost it. Tears were streaming down my face as I remembered all of the times I watched her perform that very same song on YouTube and how I would watch it again, and again just to make sure that when I performed it I would be doing it justice. And there she was, in front of me, singing a song that she taught me, without even knowing it. Her rendition of Summertime from Porgy and Bess (a show she won the Tony for) was flawless. I can say, without a doubt, that I have NEVER seen that song sung like it should be.... until now. She was born to sing that song. Another personal favorite of mine was a song she introduced as a lullaby, Tale Of Bear and Otter. It was sweet and silly and completely unknown. She said throughout the show she wanted to open our eyes to new works and composers, and boy did she ever. Near the end of the performance she told us about the Fred Ebb award. Here is the description from The Fred Ebb Foundation,

"The Fred Ebb Award recognizes excellence in musical theatre songwriting, by a songwriter or songwriting team that has not yet achieved significant commercial success. The award is meant to encourage and support aspiring songwriters to create new works for the musical theatre. The prize includes a $50,000 award."

The winner of the fouth Fred Ebb award was Adam Gwon. Since winning Adam has gone on to write Ordinary Days. Audra sang us the song, I'll Be Here, which is about a love story set in New York City, we then learn that the husband dies during 9/11 and the wife must go on, she must find happiness again without him, and when she does she knows he is whispering congrats in her ear and saying, it's ok, because I'll be right here. It was a powerful song that touched so many in the audience as evidenced by the sniffling and wiping away of tears. She closed the show with Climb Every Mountain from The Sound of Music and if that wasn't enough she came back out, gave a passionate speech about marriage equality and ended with Somewhere Over the Rainbow. It was perfect, in every. single. way.

Now I know you may be asking, "Why on earth was Audra in Brookings, SOUTH DAKOTA?!" Here's why, The Woodbine Series. This series is completely underwritten by an anonymous benefactor. Thanks to their generosity, every dollar of every ticket sold at every Woodbine Productions concert goes directly to providing substantial competitive scholarships to students pursuing music at South Dakota State University. What an amazing gift! Not only to the students of SDSU but to the community of Brookings and to the people of South Dakota. It is not often that Jackrabbits and Coyotes can be in the same room without getting nasty, but that night a large group of musical theatre students from USD in Vermillion came to sit along side students from SDSU as together they experienced a concert that was significant, substantial and important. To think that this woman who has graced so many Broadway stages and has performed at the biggest venues throughout the world would come to little old South Dakota is something else. She knew she had a gift to give she knew that there would be people in that audience who would in someway be forever changed by seeing her perform, and she came. She came to Brookings, SD. That in itself is a little bit of a miracle.

Audra will continue to break records, to win awards and make history and now we can say she sang for us. We saw a master at work, and boy was it good. The big voice came to the big prairie. We're sorry for our lack of Chipotle's Audra, but please know that you are welcomed back here any time. And to end on a personal note, thank you Audra, thank you for giving a little girl who hated boy bands a place to belong. I belonged in your music... it has and will continue to inspire me every step of the way. To Audra McDonald... LONG MAY SHE REIGN!

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