Pottermore, J.K. Rowling’s official website of all things Harry Potter (and, sure, now Newt Scamander) has announced that plans are now very much being made for a Broadway run of the hit sort-of-eighth-installment of Harry Potter, the play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (written by Jack Thorne, with story contributions Rowling and John Tiffany, and directed by Tiffany.)
Per the website, the show’s producers are discussing an opening in 2018 at New York’s Lyric Theatre, following renovations. Cirque du Soleil’s Broadway production, Paramour, was recently announced to be leaving to make way for updates, and it seems like said updates might be in part be those made in anticipation of Cursed Child, with Pottermore writing that as part of these talks, Ambassador Theatre Group is planning “a huge multi-million-dollar transformation of New York’s Lyric Theatre in preparation for its big, Broadway opening.” One aspect of the changes would be making the space more intimate, reducing it from a 1900-seat theatre to one that hosts 1500 audience members. Producer Sonia Friedman told the website:
When the redesigned Lyric was presented to us as an idea and what the possibilities could be, we re-thought the whole thing and totally fell in love with the notion of a theatre being created especially for the Cursed Child, overseen by designer Christine and our director John Tiffany.
The production would be moving from London’s Palace Theatre after an extremely lucrative run that began with previews in June, 2016, and was extended to May 27, 2017. While the script of the play, when taken alone, may not have been completely satisfying (I personally took issue with the time travel disparities between the play and the novels, and the way time travel allowed the play to revisit too many old narratives rather than turning its gaze forward), the production itself garnered nearly universal acclaim, and it’s of course important to keep in mind that the book/script was never more than a blueprint of something meant to be experienced through performance.