Audra McDonald (‘Ohio State Murders’) on the ‘psychological toll’ of Adrienne Kennedy’s play and tying the Tony Awards record [Exclusive Video Interview]
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“It grabbed my heart and just shook it,” reveals Audra McDonald of Adrienne Kennedy’s searing play “Ohio State Murders.” The six-time Tony Award winner initially participated in a reading of the script over Zoom, one of many plays producer Jeffrey Richards organized during the pandemic to keep folks engaged while theater was shuttered. “When we finished, I couldn’t breathe. I was so stunned, and my soul was so shaken by what I had just read that I couldn’t let it go,” admits McDonald. The actress immediately agreed to star in the searing drama, eventually earning her 10th career Tony nomination. Watch the exclusive video interview above.
Even though it just recently debuted on Broadway, “Ohio State Murders” was first performed over 30 years ago. Its central figure, Suzanne, never leaves the stage and endures a horrific, unceasing wave of racism, misogyny, and violence. “I know that if I had seen it as an audience member in the 80s, I would’ve thought, well, we’re moving away from those times,” admits McDonald. “We’re heading in a direction away from that toward the future. And to now be in 2022 and feel like we have just made a sharp U-turn and gone straight back past the 80s.” This intersection of experiences is part of why the actress felt the instantaneous urge to bring the piece to life. “It’s rearing its ugly head in such a profound way right now,” she notes of the racism and misogyny at the heart of Suzanne’s plight, “So in some ways, I think the play has more resonance.”
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Diving into those heavy themes is no walk in the park, especially doing so eight times a week. But McDonald is used to testing herself with her stage projects. “I pick things that are hard,” she reveals. Indeed, her most recent Broadway outings were the intense two-hander “Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune” and transforming into a late-career Billie Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.”
Like “Lady Day,” “Ohio State Murders” is (almost) a one woman show. While McDonald was prepared for the work that is necessary with carrying the majority of a play, she was shocked by how emotionally taxing the journey was. “I was not prepared for the psychological toll that this piece took on me…I am still recovering from it,” she explains. “I’m really, usually good about leaving my characters at the theater and not bringing them home with me, but this one crept home with me. And maybe it’s because of where we are in society right now, in this world right now, it in some ways felt inescapable.”
Surely some of that toll is a result of the play’s final moments. As Suzanne closes her presentation on violence, she looks up to the heavens. She speaks the names of her murdered daughters out loud as a final goodbye. “It is going to sound counterintuitive, but the point was to not call up the emotion,” reveals McDonald of the shattering moment. “The point was to make sure that I spoke their names, that I honored their lives and their presence in my life, and in delivering the indictment of what that school and that systemic racism and society did to her. And then shouting her daughter’s names to the heavens.” Director Kenny Leon was adamant that this moment could not be one where the actress broke down into tears. So McDonald was able to use that directive to fight that natural urge to cry after a painful journey. The result is a haunting tableaux of grief.
McDonald earned her 10th Tony Award nomination for her role in “Ohio State Murders,” which ties her with legendary actresses Julie Harris and Chita Rivera as the most nominated performers in Tony Awards history. “I immediately go to my awe of the two of them,” she notes upon hearing the impressive statistic, “and then the rest of me goes, I don’t know what you’re talking about, because I can’t. Do you know what I mean? I can’t comprehend it.” Such a title appears to her as something intangible, something she is unable to square away in her mind. Instead, thoughtful artist as she is, McDonald dives into the work to connect to the sense of something greater. “Rehearsal is how I can touch that, or being on stage is how I can touch that, or growing as an actress is how I can touch that,” she says.
McDonald has won six competitive Tony Awards, more than any other performer. Those wins are courtesy of “Carousel,” “Master Class,” “Ragtime,” “A Raisin in the Sun,” “Porgy and Bess,” and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill.” She earned additional nominations for “Marie Christine,” “110 in the Shade,” “Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune,” and now, “Ohio State Murders.”
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