Four-Time Tony Winner Audra McDonald Eyes Return to Broadway in Porgy and Bess

Four-time Tony winner Audra McDonald, who recently left TV’s Private Practice and confirmed her involvement with the upcoming production of Porgy and Bess at the American Repertory Theater, told Broadway.com she is eyeing a return to Broadway in the role of Bess. “It could end up on Broadway,” McDonald said about the Diane Paulus-helmed production in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “We’ll see.”

The new production is a re-imagining of George and Ira Gershwin’s classic opera by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Suzan-Lori Parks and composer Diedre Murray. The show is scheduled to debut in September 2011 at A.R.T., where Paulus serves as artistic director. No other casting has been revealed.

Porgy and Bess, which features music by George Gershwin and lyrics by Ira Gershwin and DuBose Heyward based on Porgy by Heyward and his wife Dorothy, includes such classics as "Summertime," "Bess, You Is My Woman Now," "I Got Plenty o' Nothin" and "It Ain't Necessarily So." Originally conceived as an American folk opera, it tells the story of Porgy, who lives in the slums of Charleston, South Carolina, and his attempts to rescue Bess from the clutches of Crown, her pimp, and Sportin' Life, a drug dealer.

McDonald received Tony Awards for A Raisin in the Sun, Ragtime, Master Class and Carousel. She has also received Tony nominations for 110 in the Shade and Marie Christine. In addition to Private Practice, her TV and film credits include Wit, Annie, Cradle Will Rock, The Bedford Diaries and Kidnapped.

The creative team for Porgy and Bess will include choreographer Ronald K. Brown, set designer Riccardo Hernandez, costume designer and Project Runway finalist Emilio Sosa, lighting designer Christopher Akerlind and sound by Acme Sound Partners.