UGA Performing Arts Center to host award-winning Broadway star for anniversary celebration

What better way to ring in a quarter century of bringing Broadway to Athens than with a performance by one of its best and brightest stars? On Sunday, the University of Georgia Performing Arts Center (PAC) will kick off its 25th anniversary with a gala celebration starring six-time Tony Award-winner Audra McDonald.

McDonald is scheduled to perform a selection of standards from the Great American Songbook at 3 p.m. at Hodgson Concert Hall with Broadway veteran Brian Hertz, who has been McDonald's associate music director and pianist since 2012.

In addition to her award-winning turns in "Carousel," "Master Class," "Ragtime," "A Raisin in the Sun, "Porgy and Bess" and "Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill," McDonald earned two Grammy Awards for "Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny at Los

Angeles Opera" and an Emmy for her role as host of PBS’s "Live From Lincoln Center."

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"Theater is not only about witnessing a performance. It also asks audiences to search inside themselves and invest in the piece before them," McDonald told the Banner-Herald via email. "Theater helps us find empathy and exploration in ourselves and society. It simply makes the world better."

Construction for the PAC began in December 1993 and was completed in late 1995. The inaugural celebration week took place April 13-19, 1996, and the PAC has hosted such artists as Jessye Norman, Yo-Yo Ma, Renée Fleming, Sutton Foster, Wynton Marsalis and Yuja Wang over the years.

The venue's 25th anniversary event series will continue with the "City on a Hill" art exhibit with guest speakers William U. Eiland and Annelies M. Mondi on April 26, a performance by UGA's Symphony Orchestra on April 28, and will conclude with an Atlanta Symphony Orchestra concert on May 1.

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McDonald, who currently appears in Julian Fellowes’ historical drama "The Gilded Age" on HBO and the Paramount+ series "The Good Fight," said that the COVID-19 shutdown gave her "a renewed sense of respect and gratitude" for performing arts centers around the world.

"I think of them like churches, where people gather in community to be comforted, edified and united by music and art," said McDonald. "I believe this has sustained them through difficult times over the years. Wishing UGA’s Performing Arts Center every congratulations for its 25th anniversary, and here’s to 25+ more!"

Visit pac.uga.edu/event/25th-anniversary-gala-performanceaudra-mcdonald for tickets and detailed information.

This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Broadway star Audra McDonald to perform at UGA gala this weekend