Audra McDonald reacts to plans for Broadway theater to be named after entertainment trailblazer Lena Horne

Some of Audra McDonald’s hopes and dreams to diversify the Great White Way are coming true.

The six-time Tony Award winner, a co-founder of the Black Theatre United, is celebrating the announcement of the latest Broadway theater to be named after a Black artist.

Late last week, the Nederlander Organization revealed plans that the Brooks Atkinson Theatre, on W. 47th St., will be renamed to honor the late entertainment pioneer Lena Horne.

Currently named after the late Pulitzer Prize-winning theater critic and home to the hit musical “Six,” it’s the first time a Black woman will have a Broadway theater named in her honor.

“I am overjoyed that the Nederlander Organization is honoring Lena Horne’s powerful legacy by renaming a theater in her honor,” McDonald said in a statement. “Representation is everything. A Black woman being recognized and memorialized in this way is powerful.”

The “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar and Grill” star also said that the venue “will affirm that Black women and girls are seen; we are heard, we belong and when we stand in her theater we will stand even taller on her mighty shoulders and her enduring legacy.”

After its formation on the heels of the George Floyd murder, the Black Theatre United, a New York City-based nonprofit advocacy organization, outlined a historic “New Deal For Broadway” – a comprehensive industry-wide agreement with the theater community’s predominately white leadership relating to equity, diversity, inclusion, accessibility and belonging standards.

One of the resolutions and reforms that came out of a five-month long summit with labor unions chiefs, theater owners, directors, casting agents and producers were for each of the three major theater owners — Shubert, Nederlander and Jujamcyn — to rename one of the 41 New York City theaters they own after a Black Broadway luminary.

Jujamcyn previously named the former Virginia Theatre to the August Wilson Theatre on W. 52nd St. after the late playwright.

In March, the Shubert Organization announced that the 110-year-old Cort Theatre on W. 48th St. will be renamed after acting titan James Earl Jones.

James L. Nederlander of The Nederlander Organization said that Horne “became a part of our family over the years” and that it was his “privilege, honor, and duty to memorialize [her] for generations to come.”

Known for films such as “Stormy Weather,” “Cabin in the Sky” and “The Wiz,” Horne, who died in 2010 at age 92, was a trailblazing singer, dancer, actor and civil rights activist. For her 1981 Broadway revue, “Lena Horne: The Lady and Her Music,” the Brooklyn native was the recipient of a Special Tony Award and two Grammy Awards.

Nederlander’s father was one of the lead producers of the critically acclaimed show, which played at the Nederlander Theatre for a year-long run.

“Lena Horne was a woman of fierce talent, incredible strength, and profound conviction,” McDonald added. “With the utmost grace, she broke down barriers. Beyond her indelible work on stage and screen, she was a civil rights activist who continues to inspire many of us today.”

The Nederlander Organization said it will host an event this fall for the renaming ceremony. An official date is forthcoming.