I was drawn to Angelou because she bore a resemblance to Lola, with the same low and rich timbre of a voice. Almost daily, Rosie’s show featured someone from Broadway, including the actress and singer Audra McDonald, whose voice was so expansive—swinging and soaring, walloping and wailing—it seemed to jump out of the screen and into my bedroom. I didn’t know what Broadway was, or how the Tony Awards differed from the Oscars or the Emmys, but because of McDonald, I recorded the 1998 Tony Awards on TV, which Rosie hosted. About twenty minutes into the show, just as I was figuring out the
...more
