The story of Harry Potter continues on stage, with Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The play, a story from J.K. Rowling, John Tiffany, and Jack Thorne, picks up 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts and centers on Harry Potter's son, Albus. The play opened in London's Palace Theater in July 2016 to rave reviews. Although the award-winning play did cause some controversy among some fans, it has been a successful production for the wizarding world of Harry Potter. Despite this, Warner Bros. continues to deny rumors that the play will be turned into a movie -- which is also unlikely given the studio's current commitments to the new Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them franchise.
Although it looks like Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will not be making its way to the big screen anytime soon, the play will be coming to the U.S. in its original form, as final talks for a move to Broadway were made official today.
The news was announced on the official Harry Potter website, Pottermore. Although an exact date for opening is not yet confirmed, Pottermore has confirmed that they are intending to open in the spring of 2018, at New York's Lyric Theater. The play will be produced by Sonia Freedman and Colin Callender (who produce the London performance), with the Ambassador Theater Group (ATG).
ATG will be revamping the Lyric for The Cursed Child, shrinking the venue from a 1,900 seat theater into a 1,500 seat auditorium for the performance. The Lyric is well-known for accommodating performances that require a lot of space and complex rigging, having hosted Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark, and currently hosting Cirque Du Soleil's Paramour. There were rumors that King Kong could have been next to occupy the Lyric, but The Cursed Child will undoubtedly have a bigger draw. This will also be ATG's second Broadway theater, as the company is currently working to re-open the Hudson (a retired Broadway venue).
This is fantastic news for Harry Potter fans on this side of the pond, as a Broadway production will make it significantly easier for North American fans to see the production in all its glory. Although most fans were quick to snap up a copy of the script (which was released as a hardback book to coincide with the opening of the play), reading a script just isn't quite the same as seeing one performed. Set designer Christine Jones, a native New Yorker, is thrilled to be able to redesign the theater specifically for this production:
"It’s an incredibly unique, once-in-a-lifetime experience. The hope is that this theatre will have its own soul and its own identity, very much a New York theatre from the period and not just a recreation of what was made in London."
Of course, all of this is still not 100 percent confirmed, and Freedman has stated on the site that it is "still subject to planning". The proposed redesign of the Lyric, one of the biggest theaters on Broadway, will undoubtedly have to go through several stages to get approval before these plans can be made 100 percent official. The redesign plans also mean that fans will have to wait a little longer than they may have expected, with a 2018 opening still well over a year away. Casting will not be announced for some time, so it will also be interesting to see if the Palace production will close and the core cast will be brought over to the U.S.
Screen Rant will keep you updated on the Broadway production of Harry Potter And The Cursed Child as it develops.
Source: Pottermore