THE AUDIENCE Producers Pass Up $400K to Keep the Schoenfeld

Word is the producers of The Audience, starring Helen Mirren as Queen Elizabeth II, wanted to keep their spring slot at Broadway's Gerald Schoenfeld Theater so badly they were willing to pass up $400,000.

THE AUDIENCE imagines a series of pivotal meetings between the Downing Street incumbents and their Queen.

"The Schoenfeld is a palace, and more suitable for our palace," The Audience director Stephen Daldry told The New York Times.

The play's producers added in a statement: "The production design was specifically adapted for this theater. The sets have evolved from the London production, with designer Bob Crowley adding and incorporating the specific architectural elements of this particular theater, which would have to be reconceived in another venue."

Terrence McNally's starry revival of IT'S ONLY A PLAY is currently running at the Schoenfeld and had planned on ending its engagement on January 4 before the show's box office boomed and most of the cast agreed to stick around for an extension (Nathan Lane is being replaced by Martin Short come winter.)

When IT'S ONLY A PLAY Tom Kirdahy learned the Schoenfeld would be open after ONCE closes this winter, he thought, "Is there a world where we can just stay at the Schoenfeld, and 'The Audience' can go next door?"

And that's when Kirdahy offered half of the estimated moving cost -- $400,000 -- to the producers of The Audience. No deal. THE AUDIENCE's producers declined even to negotiate.

So, IT'S ONLY A PLAY is moving to the Jacobs in January and playing there through the spring. And the Queen will reign at the Schoenfeld.