Audra McDonald, Mel Brooks & More to Receive National Medal of Arts from President Obama

Tony winners Audra McDonald and Mel Brooks, as well as the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center, are among the recipients of the 2015 National Medal of Arts. They will be presented with their honors by President Barack Obama in a ceremony at the White House on September 22. The event will be streamed live.

McDonald won her history-making sixth Tony Award in 2014 for Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill; the mommy-to-be last hit the Broadway stage in Shuffle Along and will appear in the upcoming live action adaptation of Beauty and the Beast. She is as an active humanitarian as she is a performer and serves on the Board of Directors for the Covenant House.

EGOT recipient Brooks won three Tonys in 2001 for adapting his film The Producers for the stage; six years later, a musical version of his comedy Young Frankenstein premiered on Broadway. His myriad films include Blazing Saddles, Spaceballs and Robin Hood: Men in Tights.

The Eugene O’Neill Theater Center received the Regional Theatre Tony Award in 2010. The Waterford, CT estate discovers and develops new works. Shows to find their footing at the O’Neill include Avenue Q, In the Heights, Fences and [title of show].

Also receiving honors at the ceremony are playwright Luis Valdez, playwright and director Moisés Kaufman, Oscar winner Morgan Freeman, composer Philip Glass, Motown legend Berry Gordy, writer Sandra Cisneros, folk musician Santiago Jiménez Jr., choreographer Ralph Lemon and painter Jack Whitten.

The National Medal of Arts was created in 1984 to honor artists and patrons of the arts. Recipients are selected by the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional members of the Broadway community to have received this honor in previous years include Stephen Sondheim, John Kander, Tony Kushner, Tommy Tune, Mike Nichols, Barbra Streisand, James Earl Jones and Angela Lansbury.