Audra was profiled in TIME Magazine in a piece by Charlotte Alter titled “Audra McDonald is Our Greatest Living Stage Actor.” She was on the cover of the print edition dated June 5, 2025. Read the full article.

On February 3, Audra visited Stephen at The Late Show to talk about playing Rose in Gypsy on Broadway, share strategies for New York Times Connections, and offers some advice to a young actor who just arrived in NYC.

Audra stars as Rose alongside Joy Woods (Louise), Jordan Tyson (June) and Danny Burstein (Herbie) in the revival of Gypsy on Broadway, directed by George C. Wolfe. The production opened officially at the newly renovated Majestic Theatre on December 19, 2024, to unanimous critical acclaim.

Hold your hats and hallelujah, our leading musical tragedienne offers an ultra-dramatic Rose in George C. Wolfe’s Broadway revival.” —New York Times

“McDonald, as will be no surprise if you’ve seen her in full dramatic mode, makes a meal of Rose’s ambition and, with a slight southern drawl, a dessert of her guile. […] Her scenes with Burstein are rich and funny and regretful; those with June (Jordan Tyson) and Louise (Joy Woods) are withering.” —New York Times

“[Wolfe] has given us a way of seeing a star who had to be seen in this role. As ‘Gypsy’ suggests, and McDonald keeps proving, a pioneer woman needs a frontier.” —New York Times

“A once-in-a-lifetime performance that you’d be crazy to miss.” —The Washington Post

“Audra McDonald is a revelation in a magnificent star turn.” —Time Out New York

“Audra McDonald is the best actress to ever play this iconic role.” —Chicago Tribune

“McDonald’s “Rose’s Turn” feels like a once-in-a-lifetime event; the sort of unequivocal theater magic that you one day tell your grandkids about.” —USA Today

“In ‘Gypsy,’ McDonald augments her unparalleled Broadway legacy by summoning America’s rueful history to the stage.” —Los Angeles Times

“It wasn’t simply that the actor’s virtuosity was unleashed at full force. It was that Broadway history and Black American history were converging in a performer who was offering her gifts to an audience in a climactic conflagration. The result was, if not a religious experience, then a spiritually transfiguring one. There was something at once sacrificial and redemptive in what McDonald was channeling in her art, and I left the Majestic Theatre feeling reborn.” —Los Angeles Times

“Ms. McDonald transfixes, terrifies, rends the heart with her searing performance of this great showpiece. It ranks as a landmark not just in this artist’s already-historic career but also in the storied career of the show itself.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Any production of ‘Gypsy’ rises or falls on its Rose, and Ms. McDonald’s lifts this staging to majestic (sorry) heights.” —The Wall Street Journal

“Fueled more by anguish than fury, McDonald cuts a wrenching path through the emotional labyrinth of Sondheim’s lyrics for ‘Rose’s Turn,’ finding a hundred shades of feeling sometimes in a single syllable. It’s a breakdown for the ages — and the kind of thrilling take that keeps the classics alive.” —The Washington Post

“McDonald’s Rose is a gale of tremulous desperation and vulturous ambition. […]  It’s a true bravura performance, the type of mesmeric, shamanistic, nearly unbelievable wattage promised by the best of musical theater.” —Guardian