HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD 2021 Previews — Page 5

Stop? There is not now, nor ever was there, a tour of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

The way the show is set up makes it impossible to tour. And, you’re incorrect regarding the San Francisco production moving to Toronto. There was a brief period of a few months where both productions were running at the same time. So, both of those were their own physical productions and the sets from San Francisco weren’t sent to Toronto.

The Toronto production opened in June 2020, The San Francisco production closed September of the same year.

Updated On: 7/9/23 at 06:33 PM

I know nothing about this show, why would it be difficult to tour? The set?

Yeah, hard to imagine a touring version not being a lot less exciting.

There's flying over the audience, trap doors, and transformations that take place in the house, just to name a few things that would need to be cut.

There are other things that would need to be adjusted too.

Ya but what the audience doesn't know, they won't miss.
Same goes for any downscaled tour.
(Although agreed, that this show would need to be significantly altered to tour)

ColorTheHours048 said: "Tag said: "Ya but what the audience doesn't know, they won't miss.
Same goes for any downscaled tour.
(Although agreed, that this show would need to be significantly altered to tour)"

I think what we’d see is more reviews pointing out how crappy the script is than we’ve seen thus far. Any tour that goes out would still have plenty of special effects, since that’s the production’s only real selling point, but I think the cracks would show more in a scaled-down version."

Moreso with the Single Part version. At least when it was two parts, the script had move room to breathe and gave a little bit more meat to characters' motivations and background. In the single part, it's so bare bones that, as you said, the cracks are more prominent.

Why didn’t the San Francisco production go on to Chicago, the CIBC Theatre would be perfect, as would the Ahmamson in Los Angeles?

perfectlymarvelous said: "The SF production wasn't profitable, so I don't see why they'd open another sit-down production and alter another theatre in a city that's closer to New York if no one wanted to see it at a theatre fully across the country."

For the San Francisco run, I know that it first opened in Fall 2019 but then, of course, paused in Spring 2020 until January 2022 just to close in eight months later.

Was it not doing well before the shutdown? Truly just asking as I honestly wasn't paying attention to how it was doing. I'm assuming the effects from pandemic didn't help when it returned thus its short run last year.

Fosse76 said: "The set isn't all that complicated. The issue is the use of traps for a few effects...their necessity is dependent on whether or not there is a way to convincingly stage those effects without traps. An effect at the end of Act 1 would need to be altered, and one other effect (involving water) would also likely need to be altered. There's an effect in Act two involving blacklight, but as cool as it is, limiting it to the stage is fine.

However, when Wicked altered its tour set for the Chicago sitdown in order to add a trap door, all they did was extend the tour deck over part of the orchestra pit and place the trap there. I can see HP doing that for the downstage trap, in which case there is only one other effect in the show that uses a trap, and it's upstage. I can envisage a way to do the illusion without a trap, so I don't think it *needs* to be downsized as much as others think.



For sure the set would be smaller, but would otherwise have the same "look" as on Broadway."

The only reason wicked was allowed to alter things to provide a trapdoor was because it was known from the get go that it was a sit down production and not a tour stop. I have seen a few shows on tour where the Broadway productions of the show use a trapdoor.


I recently was in DC and decided to catch a performance of Beetlejuice while I was there. I noticed that they changed the the lyrics in “Ready Set Not Yet” simply because they had to change the way Adam and Barbara died because there was no trap door. Even in Wicked, rather than coming up from the stage, The levitating broom flies in from the wings . These are just two examples of what I am sure are many.

I mean i'm not surprised they're only doing the major cities...

Have you seen the show? two part or one part?

Timon3 said: "I’ve just had a look at the show’s website and now the Melbourne production has closed, where I would’ve thought it would move to Sydney, which it hasn’t, that’s a surprise.

Being a Tony and Olivier award winner, it is surprising this has only played approx 7 venues around the world, wouldn’t like to say it is poorly produced, but I was expecting better."

Islander_fan said: "Fosse76 said: "The set isn't all that complicated. The issue is the use of traps for a few effects...their necessity is dependent on whether or not there is a way to convincingly stage those effects without traps. An effect at the end of Act 1 would need to be altered, and one other effect (involving water) would also likely need to be altered. There's an effect in Act two involving blacklight, but as cool as it is, limiting it to the stage is fine.

However, when Wicked altered its tour set for the Chicago sitdown in order to add a trap door, all they did was extend the tour deck over part of the orchestra pit and place the trap there. I can see HP doing that for the downstage trap, in which case there is only one other effect in the show that uses a trap, and it's upstage. I can envisage a way to do the illusion without a trap, so I don't think it *needs* to be downsized as much as others think.



For sure the set would be smaller, but would otherwise have the same "look" as on Broadway."

The only reason wicked was allowed to alter things to provide a trapdoor was because it was known from the get go that it was a sit down production and not a tour stop. I have seen a few shows on tour where the Broadway productions of the show use a trapdoor.


I recently was in DC and decided to catch a performance of Beetlejuice while I was there. I noticed that they changed the the lyrics in “Ready Set Not Yet” simply because they had to change the way Adam and Barbara died because there was no trap door. Even in Wicked, rather than coming up from the stage, The levitating broom flies in from the wings . These are just two examples of what I am sure are many."

It wasn't designed that way. When the tour opened in Chicago, the trap was not part of the set. Once the tour cast left, the set remained and was then altered. They extended the stage deck over the pit to add the trap door, and built a side balcony on the proscenium. It wasn't "known" that it'd be a sitdown until after tickets had gone on sale for the tour stop. Broadway in Chicago had to start shuffling shows to other theaters.

With no two-part structure to compare this to, I thought this was very good but not great. Four covers were on today, including Eric Cheung for Scorpius (a real standout) and Ted Deasy for Amos / Dumbledore.

From a production value standpoint, tonight was — for lack of a better word — magical. The special effects throughout make the entire show pop. I won't soon forget the Dementors effect at the end of Act I. It's no wonder this swept the play design categories at the Tonys when it was eligible.

Shoutout to John Tiffany's slick direction and Steven Hoggett's movement adding some fluidity to the proceedings. The various "wand dances" and the Death Eaters' march were highlights, set to some apt, moody underscoring by Imogen Heap.

It's been a long while since I finished reading through the Harry Potter books, and even though I knew much of the backstory, I still thought portions of Jack Thorne's libretto were quite choppy, specifically in the second half. Harry's name is in the title, but this clearly is the Albus and Scorpius show (with some decent support from Harry, Ron, Ginny, Hermione, and Draco). Cheung and Joel Meyers made quite the meal out of these deep characters.

Some visible audience reactions today to Dumbledore's first entrance, as well as the Dolores Umbridge and Bellatrix Lestrange reveals.

I'll also shout out Jane Bruce — she was an ensemble standout in Jagged Little Pill and she nailed Delphi's descent into evil here.

Tonight clocked in at a 3:26 runtime before curtain call (started at exactly 7 PM, ended 10:26), and I hadn't felt this comfortable in a seat in some time.

Six years into its NYC run, and Potter shows no signs of letting up on its charm.

Updated On: 5/31/24 at 11:26 PM