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Some eight years after its London bow, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is coming to Chicago and sticking around.
The hit West End and Broadway show, a spectacular sequel to J.K. Rowling’s blockbuster “Harry Potter” series of books, will arrive play at Broadway in Chicago’s Nederlander Theatre. Previews begin Sept 10, 2024 with an official opening slated for Sept. 26, 2024. The final performance of the 21-week engagement will be Feb. 1, 2025.
Chicago will the originating point of the first national tour. The hefty months-long run here is likely to be a boon to the economic fortunes of Chicago’s Loop next fall and potentially a tourist draw from throughout the Midwest. The show’s arrival also may be a rare opportunity for Chicago actors as the director, John Tiffany, is known for his affection for the city’s theater artists. The longtime Chicago actor Steve Haggard currently plays the title role on Broadway.
Written by Jack Thorne and based on an original story written by Rowling, Tiffany and Thorne, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is set some 19 years after the conclusion of the original fantastical series and follows Albus Severus Potter, the son of Harry Potter, as he tries to chart his own journey at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, where it’s no fun to have a famous father and many unsolved conflicts remain.
To date, “Cursed Child” has been in London, New York, San Francisco, Toronto, Melbourne, Hamburg and Tokyo. The initial London staging, which received rapturous responses and widespread critical acclaim, was a six-hour, two-part affair, requiring audiences to buy two tickets to see the whole show, typically by attending all afternoon and evening on Wednesdays, Saturday and Sunday. The Broadway production opened that way too, but later was changed to a one-show version, which boosted the show’s attendance and grosses in the aftermath of the pandemic, even though the creatives were known to prefer the original two-part idea, which continues to this day in London.
For U.S. touring purposes, a single-evening experience (with a running time of about 3 hours and 30 minutes) and a standard eight-performance week obviously is a lot more practical. The narrative is by necessity truncated but all the magic effects remain — as does a story arc filled with exciting revelations for those Harry Potter fans who have not read the widely published script.
Chris Jones is a Tribune critic.