When the curtain rises in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune, it is on Frankie and Johnny in the middle of a one night stand. The play is about intimacy and about opening yourself up to the possibility of something new, and there’s nothing more intimate or open than a sex scene. But nude scenes are a much more onerous ask in the theatre than they are in film. In the theatre, performing night after night, a nude scene can be harrowing.

That’s how McDonald feels about it. She told the New York Times that Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune’s opening tableau of sex gave her a “fight or flight” response. Adding to the strain of the scene is the fact that it is the first time McDonald has appeared naked on stage, as well as her return to Broadway after a three year absence. She is also currently breastfeeding her second child.

“It’s been a very wild sort of experience to be literally teetering on perimenopause, naked onstage and still nursing my child through the night most nights,” she told the New York Times.

Thankfully, she and co-star Shannon were coached through the play’s nude scene by intimacy director Claire Warden, who is one of the new wave of Hollywood professionals helping actors navigate dramatic representations of sex in the post-#MeToo era.

Audra McDonald just made an incredibly powerful statement about nude scenes