Helen Mirren won an Oscar as Elizabeth II in “The Queen.”
So why not wear the crown again?
Mirren’s doing readings in London this week of a new play called “The Audience,” which chronicles Elizabeth II’s reign from 1952 to this month’s Diamond Jubilee.
“The Audience” is by Peter Morgan, who wrote “The Queen” as well as the hit Broadway play “Frost/Nixon.”
Morgan’s top choice for director, I hear, is Stephen Daldry, who staged “Billy Elliot.”
If Mirren commits to “The Audience,” the plan is to produce it in London this fall and then move it to Broadway, possibly by spring 2013.
Mirren hasn’t appeared on the New York stage since she starred opposite Ian McKellen in Strindberg’s “Dance of Death” in 2002.
She’d certainly be a big box-office draw and, given the popularity of the queen in both London and New York, “The Audience” has the potential to make its investors a tidy little packet.
Details of the new play are sketchy, but I’ve been able to suss out a few bits from my spies at Buckingham Palace. Just as he did so effectively in 2006’s “The Queen,” Morgan is trying to humanize the monarch with details of her domestic life. The story unfolds against the backdrop of dramatic, historical events — the Suez crisis, the Profumo affair (which led to the fall of Harold Macmillan’s government), the rise of Margaret Thatcher and the 1982 Falklands War.
Domestic dramas include the fire at Windsor Castle, which rattled the queen, Charles and Diana’s marriage and divorce and, of course, Diana’s death, which was the subject of “The Queen.”
Morgan, like fellow playwright David Hare (“Stuff Happens”), is adept at taking audiences down the corridors of power, so expect some nifty sets — Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Her Majesty’s Yacht Britannia.
The cast of characters includes Prince Philip, Prince Charles and the Queen Mum.
No word yet on the actors who will play them, but I nominate Frank Langella for Prince Philip. Langella won a Tony as Nixon in “Frost/Nixon,” a role he reprised brilliantly in the movie.
Mirren and Langella: Now that’s theatrical royalty!
My apologies to Tony Turner, whom in a column last week I ushered prematurely into the next world.
In fact, he’s alive and well and living in Florida.
Turner wrote a couple of gossipy, behind-the-scenes books about Motown, where he worked as a teenager.
“All That Glittered” is a candid, pull-no-punches, insider account of Diana Ross and the Supremes, while “Deliver Us From Temptation” examines the meteoric rise of the Temptations, for whom Turner worked as a road manager.
When I talked to Turner in 1995, he was at work on a third book, about Berry Gordy Jr. and the creation of Motown, which has yet to be published.
Gordy, as I reported last week, is putting together a Motown musical for Broadway in 2013.
He’d do well to take a look at Turner’s books. They’re full of juicy details and insights that could be woven into a dramatic narrative.
“Motown,” as the show is being called, will need some punch because it will inevitably be compared to Michael Bennett’s powerhouse musical “Dreamgirls.”
Perhaps Turner could work with Gordy on the script.
He’s certain to come up with something that’s a cut above your average jukebox musical.