Dame Helen Mirren crowned Queen of Broadway

Dame Helen Mirren is already acting royalty, and now she has yet another award. Picture: Getty

The star has already won an Oscar for her portrayal of the Queen in a film set in the aftermath of the death of Diana, Princess of Wales.

She reprised the role for a play which imagines the private weekly meetings between the Queen and Britain’s prime ministers over her six-decade reign.

In the production, which has already had a successful, award-winning run in London, she morphs from a young princess to the present-day Queen.

Dame Helen beat fellow British actresses Carey Mulligan and Ruth Wilson, as well as Elisabeth Moss and Geneva Carr, to the Tony for best performance by a leading actress in a play.

After her name was announced by actor Bradley Cooper, she kissed her husband, director Taylor Hackford.

Arriving at the microphone on stage at Radio City Music Hall in New York, she proclaimed: “Your Majesty, you did it again.”

She then dedicated her award to Hackford, saying: “What a massive, massive honour. Baby, this is for you, and you know why.” Addressing the audience, she said: “It’s nothing rude, incidentally.”

She went on: “The foundation upon which I stand is beautifully built by an elegant and fleet play by Peter Morgan, an elegant and theatrical production by Stephen Daldry, an elegant and imaginative set by the great Bob Crowley, a stage management team who are certainly not elegant and a crew who are stupendous, a dresser who is a rock, producers who rock and, of course, an incredible cast of British and American actors who make the Atlantic look like a little creek you can just pop across.

“This is an unbelievable honour and I am so thrilled.”

Richard McCabe, who plays prime minister Harold Wilson in The Audience, took the award for best performance by an actor in a featured role in a play and charmed the US crowd when he proclaimed “Oh, my giddy aunt” as he collected his gong.

He added: “Were he alive today, I know Harold Wilson would be very tickled.”

The stage adaptation of hit novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time was named best play, beating Wolf Hall Parts One and Two, Hand To God and Disgraced.

It continued its winning night when London-born Alex Sharp was given the prize for best performance by an actor in a leading role in a play and Marianne Elliot won for best director.

Sharp, 26, who plays a gifted mathematician with Asperger’s syndrome, described his triumph, in his first professional acting job, as “insane”.

He graduated from Juilliard School for performing arts in New York only last year and admitted he had a “blank resumé” before his Night-Time role.

Mostly home-schooled, he spent the early years of his life travelling the US in a caravan with his family before living in Italy and Devon.

After being rejected from British drama schools, he decided to go travelling again and worked as a handyman.

Sharp was renovating US properties when he applied for Juilliard.

The actor, who as a teenager and student trod the boards in venues such as the Octagon Theatre in Yeovil, Somerset, was shocked at his win. “Oh my God, this is so crazy. Oh jeez. This time last year I picked up my diploma graduating from Juilliard, so to be holding this is insane,” he said.

He thanked producers of The Curious Incident Of The Dog In The Night-Time for “taking a chance on a blank resumé”.

“This play is about a young person who is different and who is misunderstood and I just want to dedicate this to any young person out there who feels misunderstood or who feels different and answer that question at the end of the play for you: ‘Does that mean I can do anything?’ Yes, it does,” he said.

The King and I was named best revival of a musical and David Hare’s Skylight, starring British actors Carey Mulligan, Matthew Beard and Bill Nighy and directed by Stephen Daldry, won best revival of a play.

• Best Musical - Fun Home

• Best Revival of a Musical - The King and I

• Best Play - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

• Best Revival of a Play - Skylight

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Play - Helen Mirren, The Audience

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Play - Alex Sharp, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role in a Musica - Kelli O’Hara, The King and I

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role in a Musical - Michael Cerveris, Fun Home

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Musical - Ruthie Ann Miles, The King and I

• Best Direction of a Musical - Sam Gold, Fun Home

• Best Direction of a Play - Marianne Elliott, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

• Best Performance by an Actress in a Featured Role in a Play - Annaleigh Ashford, You Can’t Take It with You

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Musical - Christian Borle, Something Rotten!

• Best Performance by an Actor in a Featured Role in a Play - Richard McCabe, The Audience

• Best Choreography - Christopher Wheeldon, An American in Paris

• Best Original Score (Music and/or Lyrics) Written for the Theatre - Fun Home

• Music - Jeanine Tesori

• Lyrics - Lisa Kron

• Best Book of a Musical - Fun Home, Lisa Kron

• Best Orchestrations - Christopher Austin, Don Sebesky, Bill Elliott, An American in Paris

• Best Scenic Design of a Play - Bunny Christie and Finn Ross, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

• Best Scenic Design of a Musical - Bob Crowley and 59 Productions, An American in Paris

• Best Lighting Design of a Musical - Natasha Katz, An American in Paris

• Best Lighting Design of a Play - Paule Constable, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time

• Best Costume Design of a Play - Christopher Oram, Wolf Hall Parts One & Two

• Best Costume Design of a Musical - Catherine Zuber, The King and I