Artwork created by their children. (Michael Sofronski)
‘this has been my first year really home in our entire relationship,” Audra McDonald says of living in the spacious three-bedroom Inwood rental that she shares with her fiancé, fellow Broadway star Will Swenson.
McDonald, a four-time Tony winner who’s currently starring in “Porgy and Bess,” spent the previous four years shuttling between New York and LA as she balanced starring on the ABC drama “Private Practice” with her personal life.
“I was flying back almost every week when we were shooting ‘Private Practice’ to be with my daughter, Zoe [from her first marriage],” explains McDonald, 41. At the same time, she was maintaining a long-distance relationship with Swenson, 38, who has called Inwood home since moving to New York in 2000.
The couple met in 2007, when she was starring in “110 in the Shade,” and he was in the chorus.
“I was the understudy for the lead,” Swenson says, “and the first time I went on, the sparks, I guess, started.” He adds, “It’s a longer story than that.”
“We both discovered that we had kids and so he would bring his sons, and I would bring my daughter to the theater,” McDonald recalls. “They got along so well, they just started doing play dates.”
Both McDonald and Swenson had also lost a parent tragically — McDonald’s father in a plane crash and Swenson’s mom to cancer — and they bonded over their shared experience.
By the time McDonald and Swenson began dating, their kids were fast friends. “Audra calls them her wee posse of three,” Swenson says of his two boys, Bridger, 11, and Sawyer, 8, and her daughter, Zoe (pronounced Zo), 11.
A painting made by the children with the words “we possy of four” (a self-portrait that includes their late dog, Bailey) hangs in the living room, which is furnished with a dark red Oriental rug, an oversize, L-shaped couch and a leather ottoman. Also on the muted-green walls are small framed photos of the couple and a large mounted photo of the kids.
Other treasures are tucked away in the bedrooms, including a statue the couple found in an open-air market in San Miguel, Mexico.
“It’s two little fat people hugging each other,” Swenson says with a big smile.
“They’re so in love and touching each other,” McDonald adds. “You can’t tell where one body begins and the other ends.”
McDonald and Swenson moved in together in October 2009, when he found a great deal on a place big enough for them and their children, plus their two rescue dogs, Georgia and Butler.
“We thought about it for a minute, but then we found this place, and it’s so nice and big and it’s pretty affordable. So we have no plans in the near future to leave,” Swenson says of the $2,250-a-month apartment.
The sprawling layout features a generous foyer, a large living room and prewar moldings throughout. It resembles pricier pads on the Upper West Side, an area the couple briefly considered. But ultimately they decided on Inwood because of its proximity to Westchester, where McDonald has a house and where both of their exes live.
“This is like a great halfway point,” Swenson explains. “It’s like an apartment in the city, but it’s only a half-hour to Croton and to Midtown,” where both he and McDonald work on Broadway. Swenson plays Tick/Mitzi in “Priscilla Queen of the Desert,” which recently celebrated its one-year anniversary.
Framed and autographed cast posters that span both performers’ careers are on full display in the foyer and entry hallway, but artwork by Bridger, Sawyer and Zoe occupies much of the wall space, as does a world map charting the family’s travels.
“We did Easter in Paris last year,” McDonald says. “They got to hunt Easter eggs. Easter baskets in London in the morning and then took a train to Paris. And the Easter bunny had found them in Paris, as well.”
It was the couple’s first time in Paris together, but it didn’t even occur to them to go alone.
They did travel to Puerto Rico sans the children for a couple days in January, and that’s when Swenson proposed.
“We were just walking, and he just kind of stopped and said incredible things and then dropped to one knee, and I cried my eyes out,” McDonald says. “It was one of the most romantic things anyone’s ever done for me.”
While the grand gestures might take a back seat to the rigors of an eight-show-a-week schedule these days, McDonald looks forward to spending Christmas with Swenson and the kids far away from the bustle of the city.
“I’ve never been to Hawaii, and he’s been a lot, so we’ve got to,” she says. “That would be a nice way to come off of Catfish Row.”
Audra Mcdonald & WILL SWENSON’S
FAVORITE THINGS
* The kids’ framed art and their chalk art on the bedroom walls
* A wine bottle that Audra had made for Will
* A collection of wine corks
* A framed, autographed piece of “Star Wars” sheet music from John Williams
* The first thing they bought together as a couple: a statue in Mexico
* A foul ball caught at a Yankees game
* Posters of Broadway shows
* A world map showing their travels together