NEW YORK (AP) – Audra McDonald will soon be stepping away from her new Broadway show for the best of reasons: The six-time Tony Award-winner is pregnant.
McDonald on Tuesday announced that she is expecting and will take maternity leave from “Shuffle Along” beginning July 24. She will return to the Tony Award-nominated musical this winter. McDonald also had to postpone taking her “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill” to London.
In her absence, the role of Lottie Gee will be played by Grammy Award-winner Rhiannon Giddens. The production also said Savion Glover, the show’s choreographer, will step into the show.
Audra and her husband, actor Will Swenson, married in 2012. She has a daughter and he is father to two sons from previous marriages.
Her show explores the groundbreaking 95-year-old musical “Shuffle Along,” one of the first Broadway shows starring, written and directed by African-Americans and the first show with a jazz score.