I don’t know how this is going to work, exactly. Much awarded and beloved director Stephen Daldry (The Reader, Billy Elliott, etc) is bringing two British productions to Broadway next spring. One is an original play by Peter Morgan– The Audience. The other is a revival– Skylight by David Hare. He directed both of them in the West End, at different times, and now he’s got them opening here at the same time.

Here’s the sticky wicket: each play has a lead actress who will compete against the other for the Tony Award for Best Actress. Helen Mirren plays Queen Elizabeth II in “The Audience.” Carey Mulligan plays an ex lover trying to get on with her life in “Skylight.” Each is a sensational performance. How awkward. What will Daldry do? What will Tony voters do?

“The Audience” also features Geoffrey Beevers, Michael Elwyn, Richard McCabe, and Rufus Wright as four of the 9 prime ministers who get audiences with the Queen. Five American actors will be hired for the other roles including a woman to play Margaret Thatcher. I wonder where Kate Nelligan is. She’d be perfect. John McMartin is likely practicing a British accent as we speak.

This Broadway season is turning into quite a drama. Jeremy Gerard says today that he thinks Jeremy Jordan won’t be playing the lead when “Finding Neverland” comes to the Lunt Fontanne next winter. I think he’s right– it will be a star. Neil Patrick Harris is probably over at Harvey Weinstein’s house right now, doing magic tricks for his kids.

Harvey Weinstein is bringing “Finding Neverland” to Broadway next spring. The April 8th opening will be right in time for the Tony Awards. Diane Paulus’s directed musical based on the Marc Forster Oscar nominated movie just concluded a hit run in Cambridge, Mass. at the ART. Now comes the hard work of tweaking and streamlining and getting the show ready for prime time, as it were. Music is by British pop superstar and composer Gary Barlow.

The entry of “Finding Neverland” into the Tony sweepstakes is intriguing. Sting’s “The Last Ship” will be up against it, as well “An American in Paris,” which is just playing now in Paris, France. There are also revivals of “On the Town” and “On the Twentieth Century” plus at last the musical of “Dr. Zhivago” written by Lucy Simon (“Secret Garden”). So get ready. April is a minute away!

James Earl Jones is only 83 years young. He’s the beating heart at the center of Broadway’s revival of Kaufman and Hart’s “You Can’t Take it With You.” The play, written in 1936 and last revived fondly and hilariously in the 1980s with Jason Robards, Eddie Albert (who took over for Robards), Colleen Dewhurst, James Coco and Elizabeth Wilson, remains a laugh fest- sophisticated and corny at the same time. I have a strong feeling this is going to turn out to be the hit production of the fall among plays. Just you wait. Scott Ellis has taken what is a complicated piece to stage– lots of characters, split second comic movement– and made it run like a vintage Rolex.

JEJ is just one factor, and what a great idea to have him play “Grandpa”–Martin vander Hoff– the patriarch of the extended eccentric Sycamore family and friends. Just as brilliant is Tony nominee Kristine Nielsen from “Vanya and Sonya…” as Penelope Sycamore, Martin’s daughter, who runs her household with ditzy benign neglect. Kristine Nielsen is a genius, folks. Watch her start a line and finish it. In between, she does three other things physically preparing for the line to end. It’s like watching a crazy architect.

The rest of the cast is superb. Aussie Rose Byrne, who’s got a big movie and TV career going, makes her Broadway debut with incredible confidence and poise. She’s Alice, the Marilyn Munster as it were of the Sycamores– Alice is the only one who goes out in the world every day in New York, has a job, a life, and is “normal.” She knows her family is “off,” but she loves them. Byrne starts what should be a nice theater career.

Then there’s Annaleigh Ashford, from “Homeland” on TV and “Kinky Boots” on Broadway, as Alice’s married but way gone sister Essie. Hilarious. Fran Kranz, who was Bernard in Mike Nichols’ “Death of a Salesman” in 2012, and was recently hanged on the “Dallas”  TNT reboot, is a fine Tony Kirby, who woos Alice. Mark-Linn Baker plays counterpoint with Patrick Kerr as respectively Penny’s husband Paul and Mr. DePinna, who’s making fireworks in the basement. Broadway great Elizabeth Ashley waltzes into Act 3 as the Russian countess now waiting tables at Child’s restaurant in Times Square. Reg Rogers keeps the action going as Boris Kolenkov, Essie’s dance teacher.

Lots of stars in the audience– Glenn Close and John Lithgow, who will open soon down the street in “A Delicate Balance,” Tony winner Bobby Cannavale (who dates Rose Byrne), “Charlie’s Angels” star Jaclyn Smith (her lovely daughter dates Fran Kranz and has known him since they were in school), plus David Hyde Pierce and Billy Magnussen who came to cheer on Kristine from their “Vanya” days. Tony nominees Jefferson Mays and Bryce Pinkham from Tony winning “Gentlemen’s Guide to Love and Murder” came with wives and had terrible seats and no seats at the after party. (They didn’t complain.)

Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman had their heyday in the 30s and 40s but their comedies are timeless. You look at these charming people on David Rockwell’s gorgeously cluttered set and think that if they added a TV or a laptop the whole thing could be taking place right now. Get over to the Longacre and see what I mean. LOL, Kaufman and Hart would say now.