Her Majesty the Queen will be gracing Broadway with her presence ahead of schedule! Two previews have been added to Peter Morgan’s The Audience at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre. Directed by Stephen Daldry, the production, starring Helen Mirren, will now begin performances on February 14, 2015 and run through June 28. Opening night remains 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.