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Audra McDonald with the Phoenix Symphony in Mesa

Audra McDonald is a gifted dramatic actress who also is blessed with an almost unearthly soprano. Some compare her live performances to catching Barbra Streisand or Ethel Merman in their prime.

Her musical director, Andy Einhorn, recognizes that his boss possesses a singular quality that separates her from the current crop of Broadway divas.

“She just has that sort of indefinable ‘it’ factor,” says Einhorn, who first worked with McDonald in 2006. “With somebody like Audra, she has this undeniable presence and also the ability to deeply connect with the audience. That’s the Number 1 source that goes into making a performer successful: how well they can tap into their source of talents so that you’re allowed to tap into your emotions.”

McDonald, however, has a hard time grasping all the buzz. For example, she has won five Tony Awards. That puts her in a three-way tie with Angela Lansbury and Julie Harris as people who have won the most Tonys for performances.

She also is 43. By comparison, theater divas Bernadette Peters, Elaine Paige, Patti LuPone and Betty Buckleyall were born in the 1940s. There’s no female performer in McDonald’s generation who can rival her in terms of acclaim.

“Theater has been around since civilization began,” says McDonald, calling during a week in which she was preparing for NBC’s live broadcast of “The Sound of Music.” “It’s a cathartic experience that gets in touch with the human in each of us. When people say they were moved or enjoyed something I did, that means everything to me, because I guess in some way I touched them.”

As for all those Tonys?

“I constantly struggle with it,” she says. “I’m very grateful and lucky, and it’s an incredible honor, but it’s not something I can comprehend.”

McDonald’s career almost seems to have been blessed by magic. She grew up in Fresno, Calif. Her family was musical, even though they didn’t make a living at it. When she auditioned for her first professional show at age 9, her father, a high-school principal, accompanied her on piano.

She attended a high school that specialized in the performing arts, then moved to New York to study classical voice at Juilliard. A year after graduation, she was in the New York revival of “Carousel,” which earned her the first Tony.

“You hear about people who had been pounding the pavement for 10 years and they’re called an overnight sensation,” Einhorn says with a chuckle. “This is someone who won a Tony within two years of leaving college.”

McDonald moves easily between musicals and dramatic roles, earning honors for “Ragtime” and “The Gershwins’ Porgy and Bess” as well as “Master Class” and “A Raisin in the Sun"".” There also has been TV work; it seems rather odd that a good portion of the public recognizes McDonald only from her four-year run on “Private Practice” and not her contributions to theater. Still, she likes to work in different mediums.

“Artists are never satisfied,” says McDonald, who’s married to Broadway performer Will Swenson (“Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” “Hair”). “I like to do things that challenge me. I know I can be a perfectionist.”

That extends to her recording and concert career. She has made five solo albums and done several concert tours. Although many Broadway singers are content to fill their albums with the expected show tunes and standards, McDonald likes to champion young composers or unearth songs that haven’t been wildly overexposed. It’s hard to imagine another singer who could take John Mayer’s “My Stupid Mouth” and essentially turn it into a one-act play.

“For me, there needs to be a reason to sing it,” she says. “I need to know the why of the song. I need to know what I’m trying to accomplish in the song or what I’m trying to make happen or stop from happening. That’s a prerequisite.”

Einhorn, who works with McDonald in choosing material, acknowledges she can be tough: “If I walk in and present her with 20 songs, I’m lucky if one or two make it through.”

But he also understands why she’s so exacting.

“She could sing any song ever written and make it sound wonderful, but when you have a gift like that, you want to save it for the higher-end projects,” he says. “Plus, she’s such a deeply personal artist, it’s important she has a connection with the material.”

That’s one reason she’s not wild about holiday tunes. When asked whether she’ll do any Christmas songs at her Mesa Arts Center show, she almost balks: “Well, it’s at Christmastime. We might do a song or two.”

Einhorn, laughing, says, “You will never hear Audra McDonald sing ‘Jingle Bells.’ ”

More to her liking is “Over the Rainbow,” which she often uses as an encore. She dedicates the song to Judy Garland and discusses marriage equality from the stage before performing it.

“I don’t think of reinventing it as opposed to just applying myself to it,” McDonald says. “It’s not only been done, but it’s been done brilliantly. You have to do it your way. It has to be something you find your own way through, otherwise you’re doomed to failure.”

Einhorn says she makes an audience hear the familiar “The Wizard of Oz” song in a whole new way.

“She always approaches the lyric first,” he says. “When you hear that lyric, it’s so unbelievably universal. It’s not about creating vocal histrionics. That takes away from the song. It’s simple, not simplistic, and it relates to everybody. What’s great about the way Audra sings it is she allows you hear that.”

McDonald loves performing in concert. She hopes to record one of her shows and release it as an album. She counts Judy Garland’s “Judy at Carnegie Hall,” “Bill Evans at the Montreaux Jazz Festival” and Streisand’s “A Happening in Central Park” among her favorite discs.

“There is something special about live albums,” she says. “To catch one single moment in time is special. I enjoy being in front of an audience, and the audience becomes likes another character.”

When: 8 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 21.

Where: Mesa Arts Center, 1 E. Main St.

Admission: $45-$79.

Details: 480-644-6500, mesaartscenter.com.

Reach the reporter at [email protected] or 602-444-8849. Twitter.com/randy_cordova

 

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