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Audra McDonald is crouched over a curious white plastic box.
WORK ITRose is singular but also just a single mother refusing to live by the rules.Gypsyopens this month on Broadway. Erdem jacket. Bvlgari High Jewelry earrings. Fashion Editor: Max Ortega. Photographed by Luis Alberto Rodriguez.Vogue, November 2024.
What will eventually be my vessel for the afternoon is now a flat piece of corrugated plastic.
(Along the way, there have been long-running parts onThe Good FightandThe Gilded Age.)
STATUESQUEMcDonald has earned more acting Tony Awards than any other performer.
STATUESQUEMcDonald has earned more acting Tony Awards than any other performer. Altuzarra dress.
Lordy, it is hot!
she says, laughing.
Anna sang and played the piano in the home, but education was paramount.
STANDING STRONGMcDonald says they do not intend to change a word to fit the show’s more modern vision. Gabriela Hearst dress. Gianvito Rossi shoes. Bottega Veneta earring. Briony Raymond necklaces.
That was your weapon and your armor, McDonald says.
My parents were proud that I was able to have a career doing this.
They would have been just as proud if I had been a teacher.
UP FOR ITThis woman is determined to get at the truth of every character,” says director George C. Wolfe. Erdem jacket and skirt. Bvlgari High Jewelry earrings. Chloe Gosselin shoes.
Once everything is buckled and strapped, McDonald guides me into my craft.
You have to sit down right away or else.
I collapse on to the seat, nearly capsizing before we even embark.
Then she hops on to her own vessel, and we are off.
Its a moment of cockeyed optimism that masks the lengths to which she is willing to go for fame.
STANDING STRONGMcDonald says they do not intend to change a word to fit the shows more modern vision.
Calling Rose a stage mother is a bit like calling a T. rex a reptile.
Auden and William Saroyan.
Jerome Robbins, fresh offWest Side Story,would eventually direct and choreograph.
Laurents cleverly made the full titleGypsy: A Musical Fableto allow for some factual wiggle room.
How are you going to possibly stand up to whats been out there before?
Im at peace with it.
None of them did it like any of the rest of them did it.
So you could add another one to the pile!
But you have to at least stick your feet in the water first, she instructs.
Her astrological sign is Cancer.
Water is very important to us.
The ring was given to her by fellow Broadway actorWill Swensonwhen he proposed.
(It once belonged to his mother.)
The two actors first became acquainted while performing in the musical110 in the Shadeon Broadway in 2007.
(Swenson was an understudy who often ended up onstage.)
Both had children of similar ages and got together for playdates before any romance began.
We were in struggling and soon-to-be-done marriages, and the kids got along great, says Swenson.
We had good chemistry.
The two married in autumn of 2012 at their home in Croton-on-Hudson.
This place in the fallforget about it!
she swoons, gesturing to the blanket of trees, today in the lush green of high summer.
Erdem jacket and skirt.
Bvlgari High Jewelry earrings.
How are you going to possibly stand up to whats been out there before?
Im at peace with it.
None of them did it like any of the rest of them did it.
So you’re able to add another one to the pile!
This woman is determined to get at the truth of every character.
Her sense of surrender as a person…you have to have a good heart for that.
And, as Wolfe puts it, race is embodied, not articulated.
He quotes from the show: When is it my turn?
Audra is a woman and shes Black and she is going to bring all that means.
Before he died in 2021, he gave her his personal blessing to play Rose.
I always felt very supported by him, she says.
He was a teacher to me.
He was always cheering me on in a private and personal way.
Sondheim, a famous letter writer, wrote to her fairly often.
I have all of them and keep them close to my heart, she says.
I am calmer now, I am more in my body.
I know who I am.
She smiles thinking about the surprise that came during the run of her last musical: her youngest daughter.
We thought it was menopause that time, but it turned out to be Sally.
I dont think Rose saw herself as separate from her girls.
I understand that instinct.
Swenson notices that his wife has been nesting: installing new doors, framing pictures.
Her approach is instinctive: I dont know what Im doing!
One thing she is approaching with purpose: the upcoming election.
We better buckle up and buckle down, she says.
McDonalds daughter will be home from day camp soon.
I ask how McDonald feels about Rose looming in the not-so-far-off distance.
The prospect of failure, of not finding her.
But I will put everything I have into it.
Ready or not, here comes Mama.
