Helen Mirren to Play Queen Elizabeth Again - On Stage

(Reuters) - Oscar-winning English actress Helen Mirren will play the role of Britain's Queen Elizabeth again - this time in a stage play from the screenplay writer of "The Queen," producers said on Friday.

Dame Helen will star in Peter Morgan's "The Audience," opening in London in 2013. The play traces 60 years of weekly "audiences" or meetings at Buckingham Palace between the British monarch and her prime ministers.

Like Us on Facebook

Britain has had 12 prime ministers during Queen Elizabeth's 60-year reign, and the play imagines some of the pivotal private meetings that took place as the Queen, who ascended to the throne at age 25, matured from young womanhood to elder stateswoman, producers said in a statement.

Stephen Daldry, the man behind the stage musical and movie "Billy Elliot," will direct.

Morgan was Oscar-nominated for his screenplay for 2006 movie "The Queen," which traced royal and political reaction to the sudden death in a car crash in 1997 of Princess Diana.

Mirren, 67, won an Oscar, a Golden Globe, a Screen Actors Guild award and a British BAFTA for her portrayal of the Queen. She also won a raft of awards from playing Queen Elizabeth I in the 2005 British television series "Elizabeth I."

"The Audience" will open in previews at London's Gielgud Theatre on Feb 15, 2013, and is scheduled to run until June.