Long May She Reign Over Us! Helen Mirren Begins Previews as the Queen in The Audience on Broadway

Her Majesty the Queen has arrived on Broadway! Helen Mirren begins previews in Peter Morgan’s The Audience on February 14. Directed by Stephen Daldry, the production will play a limited engagement through June 28 at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Opening night is set for March 8.

For sixty years Elizabeth II (Mirren) has met each of her twelve Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace. Both parties have an unspoken agreement never to repeat what is said, not even to their spouses. The Audience imagines a series of pivotal meetings between the Downing Street incumbents and their Queen. From Churchill to Cameron, each Prime Minister uses these private conversations as a sounding board and a confessional—sometimes intimate, sometimes explosive. In turn, the Queen can’t help but reveal her own self as she advises, consoles and, on occasion, teases. These private audiences chart the arc of the second Elizabethan Age, from the beginning of Elizabeth II’s reign to today.

The cast also includes Dylan Baker as John Major, Geoffrey Beevers as The Queen’s Equerry, Michael Elwyn as Sir Anthony Eden, Judith Ivey as Margaret Thatcher, Dakin Matthews as Winston Churchill, Richard McCabe as Harold Wilson, Rod McLachlan as Gordon Brown and Rufus Wright as David Cameron.