Harry Potter show transforming Melbourne theatre
HARRY Potter and the Cursed Child comes to Melbourne next January with a guarantee to show us wizardry, stagecraft and storytelling like we have never seen before.
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WHEN Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opens here next year, theatre will be transformed forever and so will Melbourne.
The city will be awash with billboards to herald its arrival while the jewel in Melbourne’s theatre crown, the Princess Theatre, has already begun its multimillion-dollar refurbishment to accommodate the two-part play.
There are more changes to come, according to US set designer Christine Jones.
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Both the interior and exterior of the theatre will make its stamp on the city landscape so no one will be in any doubt that Harry is in town, and will be for some time. The theatre is booked for at least two years and it may even stay longer. If all goes to plan, it will be the longest running show Melbourne has ever seen.
As the only Australian city to house the play, with hopes to also bring the vast Potter fan base in Asia to Melbourne, tourism is set for a boom, bringing millions of dollars into the state.
The producers don’t talk about money but it was reported to cost $98 million to mount in N
ew York when it opened there last month.
Members of the creative team, who began devising the show in 2012, went to painstaking efforts to bring this story about Harry Potter’s son Albus charting his own place in the world, to life.
“In some ways, this has been the opportunity of a lifetime,” Jones says.
“Everyone had such a deep level of commitment and that’s also what you feel as an audience member.”
Unusually, all of the designers sat in on workshops and rehearsals for the London show which opened in 2016. Jones reflects that she drew each actor’s bespoke wand while watching them rehearse. It’s that attention to detail that sets the play apart.
When the creator of the wizarding saga, J.K. Rowling, agreed to mount a stage production, it was a great achievement in itself. The author has built an empire from 500 million sales of her seven novels but she never wanted to create her own stage version or agree to a musical.
Instead, a new play was written by Jack Thorne, in collaboration with Rowling and director John Tiffany, which takes Harry’s story forward 19 years after Harry Potter and The Deathly Hollows.
Rowling shares billing for the writing with Thorne and Tiffany but Jones said that Rowling was generous and trusting of the creative team.
“She never sought to control what the world we created looked like; she just gave us every opportunity to bring our own creativity and artistry to the process,” Jones said.
Jones began creating the set design in London six years ago where it was modelled on Paddington, St Pancras and Victoria stations.
So platform Nine and Three Quarters was born in a design that is a blend of gothic, classic and romantic. It is the play’s starting point as Albus boards the Hogwarts Express to take us all to unforeseen places of the imagination.
During the designing process, Jones made a point of running her ideas past her two sons Pilot, 13, and Ever, 11, who were quick to express their approval.
“They saw it 11 times in London,” she says.
“They both grew up with the books. My youngest son wouldn’t leave the house without a lightning bolt mark on his forehead so it felt right to share this with them. I showed them models of the set and my drawings. Pilot even helped me to draw some of the wands and Ever helped with some of the paint details.”
Her familiarity with Potter fandom was essential in her design. She understands her audience so it isn’t only on stage where the magic happens but it begins at the entrance to the theatre.
“We understand that the audience already has a great deal of anticipation about this so we want to engage their excitement and give them elements to delight in from the moment they arrive at the theatre,” she said.
“We meet that anticipation at the doorway and invite them into this world.”
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. Princess Theatre. From January 16. Bookings: HarryPotterThePlay.com