‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ Close to Locking in Broadway Theater
“Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” the two-part play that’s an ultra-hot ticket in London, looks to have scored its Broadway home. Producers of the show are in advanced discussions with the owners of New York’s Lyric Theater for a run that would open in spring 2018.
The Broadway incarnation of the “Harry Potter” play, a sequel of sorts to the story told over the course of the seven novels (and the eight initial films they inspired), had already been hotly anticipated by the New York theater industry, which regards the show as a potential “Hamilton”-sized hit. The show’s choice of venue represents a big win for Ambassador Theater Group, the U.K. theater giant that purchased the Lyric in 2013 as the first of its Broadway acquisitions. (The company has since bought Broadway’s Hudson Theater, due to reopen as a Broadway venue next year.)
The Lyric is currently home to Cirque du Soleil’s “Paramour” but, as previously announced, will move out in April 2017 to clear the way for renovations to the theater. Those renovations will scale the venue down from a 1,900 seat auditorium to 1,500 seats, reconfiguring the space in a way specifically tailored to “Harry Potter.”
Sonia Friedman, one half of the producing team behind “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” heads up an eponymous production company that is a subsidiary of ATG. She’s brought shows to Broadway including “Jerusalem,” “The Norman Conquests” and “Twelfth Night/Richard III.”
Friedman produces “Cursed Child” with Colin Callender (“Lucky Guy”) as well as Potter mastermind J.K. Rowling, who collaborated on the script with director John Tiffany and playwright Jack Thorne.
News of the producers’ imminent deal for the Lyric was first reported in the New York Post. Casting, exact dates and further details regarding the Broadway run of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” remain to be set.
In London, the show earned high praise from critics, and recently won the top award for play at the Evening Standards.
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