Audra McDonald
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A little Private Practice spoiler / news item in the E! Online spoiler column today. Kristin Dos Santos responds to a reader inquiry ...

Q: You haven't dished on Private Practice lately; I demand some scoop!

A: Audra McDonald told me that she and Taye Diggs have actually been taking Pilates classes prepping for all the, um, twists this season. "There's a lot of sex this season, a lot for everybody, there's a lot of bed hopping on Private Practice right now," she told me at Les Deux on Saturday night. Does that mean we'll be seeing more love with Chris Lowell? "The triangle is alive." Hooray for cougar-dom!

Kate Walsh, Audra McDonald and Amy Brenneman were seen filming Private Practice on 3rd Street Promenade in Santa Monica on Tuesday.

A DVD set including all 9 original episodes of Private Practice, along with bonus features, is scheduled for release September 16, 2008.

Season Two of Private Practice premieres October 1. We can't wait to see Kate, the girls (and the guys, too) back at long, long last.

Check out these Private Practice spoilers - straight from the cast - to see what's coming up in the premiere and future episodes!

She may be a newcomer to prime time, but Audra McDonald is already winning rave reviews from her co-stars. TV Guide talked to the four-time Tony Award winner, who plays fertility specialist Naomi Bennett on Private Practice.

TVGuide.com: How is life on Private Practice these days?
Audra McDonald: I don't know if it's fortunate or unfortunate for the producers: The cast is a group of people who really like each other. So when we do group scenes, it's very difficult to get anything done because we're having too much fun. They always need to tell us to shut up.

TVGuide.com: Any scenes where that happened recently?
Audra McDonald: Any group scene you see, especially ones in the conference room. Those scenes probably took a long time because we wouldn't shut up.

TVGuide.com: You've won four Tony awards. How does being on Private Practice, and TV in general, compare to Broadway?
Audra McDonald: Well, the live audience certainly gives you a barometer in terms of how you're doing. It forces you to focus in a different way than you focus when someone yells, "Action!" The muscles that are flexed are the same, but there's something about the danger of being in front of a live audience — you only have that one chance; whereas, if you mess up, you can do it again on film.

TVGuide.com: Does your experience on stage help you nail scenes faster?
Audra McDonald: Not necessarily, because it's different. You're doing something over and over again. So you get a lot of chances to do it different ways. What's hard for me is the lack of continuity. You shoot a lot of scenes out of order; you shoot the end before you shoot the beginning.

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This weekend's news about the recasting of Merrin Dungey (below, left) in one of the lead roles in Private Practice, raises an interesting question of how producers plan to handle the launch of the series this fall since the pilot was actually part of a two-hour episode of Grey's Anatomy.

It might've made sense, Variety notes, to repeat that episode, or even air a cut down version of it, in the first of Private Practice this fall.

But now that Audra McDonald (pictured, right) is taking over the role of Naomi Bennett, the college pal of Kate Walsh's Addison Montgomery, that is unlikely.

There'll be no re-shooting of anything done this spring, Variety reports.

Private Practice will start with a fresh episode that finds Addison Montgomery in L.A. and into her new life at the Santa Monica wellness center inhabited by her new host of quirky co-workers. Any needed back story can be filled in with dialogue in the opening moments.

So why the Merrin Dungey-Audra McDonald swap?

It has been speculated that the chemistry between Dungey and Kate Walsh was not up to par, but Variety reports that it was also a chemistry matter - between Dungey and Taye Diggs, who plays Naomi's estranged husband Sam.

Some were having trouble buying them as a couple.

Audra McDonald, a four-time Tony winner and a Juilliard-trained singer, is known for exuding a natural strength common to great stage actresses.

But the decision to make the switch couldn't have been easy for Shonda Rhimes, creator-exec producer of Grey's Anatomy and its spinoff.

Merrin Dungey is the sister of Channing Dungey, an ABC Studios executive who oversees Grey's Anatomy for the studio and is close to Rhimes.

Apparently, Addison Montgomery goes through girlfriends as fast as she does boyfriends. When Private Practice debuts this fall, Kate Walsh's character will have a new BFF - Audra McDonald.

TV Guide reports that McDonald, a four-time Tony winner, has been tapped to replace Merrin Dungey in the role of Dr. Naomi Bennett, Dr. Montgomery's old friend from medical school and trusted confidant.

The network's surprise decision was reportedly made for creative reasons.

Earlier this month, there were rumblings that execs had concerns that the Private Practice lineup wasn't perfect, especially as of the actors, who were cast hastily, reportedly didn't "pop" with audiences.

"Grey's Anatomy was cast off whoever seemed to fit the parts best and have good chemistry," says a well-placed source. "The spin-off was cast with actors the network and studio already had under contract."

Nevertheless, there are not expected to be any further cast changes coming before the show goes into production next month.

While we'll miss Merrin Dungey, we have to think creator Shonda Rhimes and ABC made the right call by discharging her. Of all the problems viewers expressed regarding the "enhanced two-hour Grey's" episode that doubled as the Private Practice pilot, a big one was the Dungey-Walsh dynamic.

We're looking forward to the debut of the new series and the role of Audra McDonald, an acclaimed actress and singer, within it.