Reducio! Less talk and more magic in revamped Harry Potter for 2022

Hit theatre show Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will be restaged in Melbourne as a shorter, one-session production, with the current epic five-hour, two-part experience due to end in March next year.

Producers said it had “become clear” that the condensed script, developed for a Broadway season due to begin on Friday, should replace the longer version in Australia, too. This would make it more accessible and affordable for a wider audience in Melbourne, around Australia and for international tourists, so the show can run for longer.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child on stage in Melbourne.Credit: Matthew Murphy

London and Hamburg productions will continue to run the original two-part version that collected nine Laurence Olivier Awards and six Tony Awards.

Two-parter tickets in Melbourne are on sale for the remaining 74 performances to March 27, and the new version will premiere in May 2022 after a five-week pause to rehearse. Everyone holding a ticket for a show postponed due to pandemic lockdowns will be able to see it before it changes.

James Snyder, who plays Harry Potter in the Broadway version, recently revealed that despite the shorter run time the show will contain “more magic”. The current production’s breathtaking moments of stage illusion are part of its appeal.

“I’ve had to learn a few more tricks, and some of the illusions that I’ve done have been enhanced,” Snyder said.

With just days until the new show opens in New York the script is still being fine-tuned, but should end up around three and a half hours long including interval, Australian executive producer Michael Cassel said – making it about half the length of the original.

The current Australian cast – which saw a few changes in May – is expected to stay on for the new version. No main character will be cut, but some minor characters may disappear and actors will likely play and cover different roles.

Cassel said the pandemic pause had given producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender a chance to take a new look at the epic play created by JK Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany for London’s West End in 2016.

“It’s a question I get asked every time the show opens: why two parts?”

Michael Cassel

“It’s a question I get asked every time the show opens: why two parts?” Cassel said. “The answer was, there’s so much story to tell, so much to convey. But then they had the past 18 months, time to think about things, and it gave that (writing) team the opportunity to come back together and say ‘if we were to reimagine this, can we do it?’ ... (Or) are we compromising the storytelling, compromising the experience?”

After a few drafts they had a version that they tried on the London stage in April with the original creative team, and it worked.

“It’s the same, but different,” says Cassel. “You’ve got all of those incredible characters, you’ve got the same story arc, but it clips along at a really spectacular pace. Part of the experience is all the wizardry and the magic and technical effects, so that’s preserved, so just the momentum of the show and the theatricality of the show is heightened.”

Once they knew it worked artistically, Cassel had to decide whether it was a shrewd business move for the Australian market. To keep the show going, he said, it was important to boost the appeal to international tourists from the region – and he also believed there was a much bigger potential domestic audience in Melbourne and Sydney.

“I felt if we were to make that switch here it would make us more accessible in terms of the time commitment, which is a big factor... and if the cost of the two-parter was previously challenging they can now buy this one-parter. I think this gives us the best chance for success.”

The whole cast and crew are fully vaccinated and in rehearsals for the show’s reopening (still as a two-parter) next Thursday.

Naomi Edwards, the show’s Australian associate director, said they were nearly up to speed for their return after a “boot camp” to get the cast ready for the physically demanding show.

“It got us of the couch and out of our trackies and just put the energy back,” she said. They also used physical and vocal exercises to help “reconnect” the cast.

“They have absolutely managed to keep everything that is special about this and transform it into something that’s told quicker.”

Naomi Edwards

“Some people have been super hungry and just busting to get back and ready to fly, and others just needed a little bit of time to adjust,” she said. There has also been the chance to take a new look at the script and the characters: there will be “slightly different interpretations of character”.

She has seen “sneak peeks” of the shorter Broadway production, though she’s not allowed to reveal spoilers.

“They have absolutely managed to keep everything that is special about this and transform it into something that’s told quicker,” she said.

There were “some really clean structural edits”, she said – but she will miss some aspects of the two-parter, particularly the community element.

“You would see the same people coming back after dinner or on the following night and they knew the people around them. That’s a really exciting thing, it gave such a shared experience and a scale of storytelling. It was a real honour to be a part of.”

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