Official: Helen Mirren Set to Return to Broadway in Peter Morgan's THE AUDIENCE; Dates and Theater Set

Academy Award winner Helen Mirren will return to Broadway this spring as Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan's The Audience, directed by two-time Tony Award winner Stephen Daldry. The limited engagement will play at the Gerald Schoenfeld Theatre, 236 West 45th Street. Previews forTHE AUDIENCE begin on February 17 and opening night is March 8. It will run through June 28 2015.

Helen Mirren received the Olivier Award for Best Actress in a Play for her role as Queen Elizabeth II in The Audience, reprising her Academy Award winning role from the film The Queen, also written by Peter Morgan. The recipient of two Golden Globe, three BAFTA, three Screen Actors Guild and four Emmy Awards, Ms. Mirren has been seen previously on Broadway in A Month in the Country (1995) and Dance of Death(2001).

The complete 18-member company will be announced in the future.

The production is designed by six-time Tony Award winner Bob Crowley with lighting by two-time Tony Award winner Rick Fisher, sound by Tony Award winner Paul Arditti, and music by Paul Englishby.

THE AUDIENCE is produced by Matthew Byam Shaw for Playful Productions, Robert Fox and Andy Harries.

The production comes to Broadway following a record-breaking run at London's Gielgud Theatre in 2013.

For sixty years Elizabeth II 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. Politicians come and go through the revolving door of electoral politics, while she remains constant, waiting to welcome her next Prime Minister.

HELEN MIRREN has won international recognition for her work on stage, screen and television. For her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in The Queen in 2006, she received an Academy Award®, Golden Globe, Screen Actors Guild (SAG) Award®, and BAFTA Award for Best Actress. She was also named Best Actress by virtually every critics' organization from Los Angeles to London. In 2014 she was honored with the BAFTA Fellowship for her outstanding career in film. On television she played the title role in "Elizabeth I" for which she won Emmy, Golden Globe and SAG Awards.

Mirren began her career in the role of Cleopatra at the National Youth Theatre. She then joined the Royal Shakespeare Company, where she starred in such productions as Troilus and Cressida and Macbeth. In 1972, she joined renowned director Peter Brook's Theatre Company and toured the world. Since then her theatre work has spanned numerous productions in the West End, the Fringe, the RSC, the National Theatre and Broadway, including A Month in the Country, for which she received a Tony nomination, and The Dance of Death opposite Ian McKellen. Subsequent productions include Orpheus Descending at the Donmar Warehouse and Mourning Becomes Electra at the National, for which she received an Olivier Best Actress Award nomination. She returned to the National in 2009 in the title role of Racine's Phèdre directed by Nicholas Hytner. This made history when it became the first theatre production to be filmed for "NTLive" and was seen in cinemas throughout the world. In her most recent performance in 2013 in London's West End, she reprised her role of Queen Elizabeth II in Peter Morgan's The Audience,directed by Stephen Daldry, for which she won an Olivier Award for Best Actress.

In 2013 she starred alongside Anthony Hopkins in the film Hitchcock, and with Al Pacino in HBO's "Phil Spector," for which she won a SAG Award for her performance. On television she earned an Emmy and three BAFTAs for playing Jane Tennison in the multi award-winning series "Prime Suspect." Her other television includes "Losing Chase," for which she won a Golden Globe Award, "The Passion of Ayn Rand," for which she won a Emmy Award, "Door to Door" and "The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone."

Mirren's latest film is Disney's The Hundred-Foot Journey directed by Lasse Hallstrom and produced by Stephen Spielberg and Oprah Winfrey, in which Mirren portrays a French restaurateur Madame Mallory. Currently in production, Mirren will be starring in The Weinstein's Company'sWoman in Gold, in which she plays Maria Altmann, the Austrian Jewish refugee who fought to reclaim her family's paintings that had been stolen by the Nazis in World War II.

Helen Mirren became a Dame of the British Empire in 2003.

TICKET INFORMATION: American Express® Card Members can purchase tickets before the general public beginning Wednesday, September 3, 10a EST through Friday, September 12, 12midnight EST. Tickets will be available to the general public on September 12 beginning at 12:01 AMthrough www.telecharge.com