newjerseynewsroom.com

BY PAULA SCHWARTZ

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

Long Live the Queen! Helen Mirren will reprise her role as Elizabeth II in a new play entitled “The Audience,” which will open at the Gielgud Theater in London’s West End early next year. Tickets just went on sale and are available by clicking here.

In 2006 Dame Helen Mirren starred in the Oscar-nominated movie, “The Queen,” which was directed by Stephen Frears. Her performance earned her a Golden Globe and an Academy Award.

“The Audience” reunites Dame Helen with Peter Morgan, who also wrote the screenplay for “The Queen,” for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Stephen Daldry, who directed both the movie and stage versions of “Billy Elliot,” will helm the play.

Prime Ministers come and go, but the Queen is forever, or at least it seems that way. The play covers six decades of the Queen’s reign, where she has met with 12 Prime Ministers in a weekly audience at Buckingham Palace. These meetings are so private there is an unspoken agreement by both parties never to repeat what is said in private, even to their spouses. The play imagines what ensued during these meetings between the Queen and the prime ministers, from Churchill to Cameron.

The description of the play on the website also says that the Prime Ministers often used these private conversations “as sounding board and confessionals” and that they sometimes turned “explosive.” The play intriguingly promises to examine the inner life of the monarch as “she advises, consoles and, on occasion, teases.”

The strength of Dame Helen’s performance in the movie was how she made Elizabeth II appear sympathetic even as she appeared so cold to the outside world around the time of Diana’s death. The play promises to have a much larger historical sweep.

And what with naked British royals being so much in the news lately, the play is a reminder that the most important Royal actually has a day job. No word yet on the actor who will play the Queen’s grumpy husband, Prince Philip, or on any of the other castmembers.

We’re hoping for at least one scene in the play where the Queen walks through the Palace with her corgis trilling “Walkies!”

“The Audience” will begin Feb. 15, 2013 and will open March 5. It has a limited run through June 15.