AUDRA MCDONALD:Yes. Yes, yes, and yes.

I was all of those things.

JEFFREY BROWN:Yes?

AUDRA MCDONALD:I'm some of them still today.

JEFFREY BROWN:I won't ask which ones.

But the theater was the outlet for that. I'm thinking of the overdramatic part.

AUDRA MCDONALD:Absolutely, the hyperactivity and the overdramatic part.

I was very insecure and had been diagnosed as hyperactive, and was a drama queen. And, you know, I was sort of famous in my family, not just my immediate family, but the rest of my family, too. My aunts use to say, oh, that one. Everybody knew that I was this child. Well, we're having a thunderstorm. We're all going to die. You're nine. Don't think about those things. It's your problem.

JEFFREY BROWN:Somebody said, put this girl on a stage.

AUDRA MCDONALD:So, literally, it was like let's channel this energy before we kill her. It was something just before she drives us crazy.

JEFFREY BROWN:Well, I was wondering if this hyperactivity explains all the different things you do.

AUDRA MCDONALD:Hopping back and forth?

JEFFREY BROWN:Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes.

AUDRA MCDONALD:Probably. Probably.

It's interesting now, because my hyperactivity—I think what the theater did for me in terms of channeling all that energy is that it doesn't feel like hyperactivity to me now. It just feels like, I have got this to do and I have got this to do. And, oh, I need to do more concerts, and, oh, but I'm curious about being on television or I want to learn about being—acting in front of the camera. Or maybe I should work on an opera. Or it's time to do some more Shakespeare. So ...

JEFFREY BROWN:This is the conversation in your head all the time?

AUDRA MCDONALD:All the time, and laundry and the kids and someone needs to feed the dogs. Those are the other things.

JEFFREY BROWN:Do any of these different forms scare you at this point?

AUDRA MCDONALD:All of them.

JEFFREY BROWN:All of them?

AUDRA MCDONALD:Every single day, they all still scare me, you know?

I think I read somewhere that Barbra Streisand started to develop -- to develop more and more stage fright as the years went by. And I understand that. They all still scare me very much, because I'm afraid I'm going to fail, and so that's why.

JEFFREY BROWN:Really?

AUDRA MCDONALD:Absolutely.

JEFFREY BROWN:Yes. So what do you do?

AUDRA MCDONALD:I stay hyperactive and go back out there, and maybe I fail at times.

But there's—I have to say there is a drive that just—that's in there somewhere that says, get back out there, get back out there every time.

JEFFREY BROWN:Audra McDonald will get out there this summer performing in concerts throughout the country.

My conversation with Audra McDonald continues online, where she talks about the stamina required and the stress involved in her recent acclaimed role in "Porgy and Bess."