If Audra wins...

She'll be the only performer to win in all four acting categories, period. Male or female.

Updated On: 5/30/14 at 08:36 PM

Rooting for her.

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It's amazing how she already won 5 Tony awards, though, especially at her age. How is that even possible?

Maxwell was not about to beat her if Follies was still running.

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Who knows, but Jan had buzz and the Tonys seem to be known for favouring shows that are open vs closed. Even if she wasn't it just furthers the point - if Audra was running against Patti in GYPSY, Alice Ripley in NEXT TO NORMAL or Christine Ebersole in GREY GARDENS who knows what would have happened. She is lucky that she wasn't.

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"Don't forget that she'd also be the first performer to ever win six Tony Awards!"

Julie Harris received six (although one was for Lifetime Achievement).

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Audra McDonald was nominated against Christine Ebersole in Grey Gardens for 110 in the Shade. She just lost that year.

I disagree so much with her being in this category. A deserving performance, without a doubt...I just think she's in the wrong category. Sounds to me like it's a setup.

The Broadway community had been waiting for your opinion.

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Another win will also push her past Lansbury.

"Who knows, but Jan had buzz and the Tonys seem to be known for favouring shows that are open vs closed. Even if she wasn't it just furthers the point - if Audra was running against Patti in GYPSY, Alice Ripley in NEXT TO NORMAL or Christine Ebersole in GREY GARDENS who knows what would have happened. She is lucky that she wasn't."

You can play these games all day, every day, but it doesn't matter. She didn't compete against these women (save for Ebersole, who she did indeed lose to) so there's really no point in trying to make an argument that she might have lost if nominated for one of her winning roles in another year. People say similar things about Memphis - if it had opened the next year (Book of Mormon year), it wouldn't have won, possibly wouldn't have even been nominated... but it ultimately doesn't matter cuz it opened when it opened. You call it luck; I call it timing.

Audra won five tonys. And it sure the hell wasn't because of "luck."

I just have a problem with trying to mash up years. There's no real way of knowing how things would be if different shows opened at different times. It's also easier to look at Tony winning performance now and view them as the "ultimate." If we had an Audra vs. Alice or an Audra vs. Patti, maybe the one that ended up losing would seem less impressive a role just because it didn't win. An example of this would be Audra's performance in 110 in the Shade - which she lost to Christine Ebersole.

Sure, you can say Audra's timing of her roles sometimes worked to her advantage - but I would not say she had no serious competition each year she won, especially for her earlier wins.

"How is that even possible"

Because there is nothing bad one can say about Audra McDonald whether she's starring, featured, singing or acting. And it's quite possible this year that she will break two tony records not because she was, as usual, marvelous, but because she took an unfathomable risk and surpassed everyone's wildest expectations.

"Audra McDonald was nominated against Christine Ebersole in Grey Gardens for 110 in the Shade. She just lost that year."

That wasn't her only loss. She also didn't win for Marie Christine in 2000. The award went to Heather Headley for Aida. The other nominees were Toni Collete (Wild Party), Rebecca Luker (Music Man) and Marin Mazzie (Kiss Me Kate).

I have no problem with her winning this year for Lady Day and have no issue with the category placement; which could have gone either way.

If luck is on her side this year, it's in that her chief competition is an actress who has already won two best actress in a play tony's. I Glass Menagerie were still running, I still think McDonald might very well win. But if Cherry Jones had only one tony award (which might have been the case; Kathleen Turner's astonishing Martha could have arguably beat Jones's Sister A), it might be a very different story.

Updated On: 5/31/14 at 12:11 PM