“Cursed Child” Is Coming to Toronto in 2020

“A WILDLY IMAGINITIVE CONTINUATION OF J.K. ROWLING’S WIZARDRY SAGA.”

— THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER

“LEAVES THE AUDIENCE GASPING IN WONDER AT THE MAGIC OF IT ALL.”

— TIME

THE TONY® AND OLIVIER AWARD-WINNING BEST PLAY

HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD

TO HAVE ITS CANADIAN PREMIERE

AT THE ED MIRVISH THEATRE IN TORONTO

AUTUMN 2020

Originating producers Sonia Friedman, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions with Canadian producer David Mirvish will bring the record-breaking, multiple-award-winning production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to Canada. This Canadian premiere will begin performances autumn 2020 exclusively at the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto.

Exact performance dates and ticketing details will be announced at a later date. Visit HarryPotteronStage.com/CA to sign up and be the first to receive ticketing information and news updates.

In a joint statement Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender said:

“Each new production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is magical in its own unique way. With each city we open our show in, and with each company of actors, we uncover something new and exciting. We can’t wait to see what surprises the Toronto production will bring.

"Toronto, with its rich history of culture and the arts, is the perfect city in which to stage our magical production in Canada. We’re especially thrilled to be producing the Canadian premiere with David Mirvish and his company and that the historic Ed Mirvish Theatre - which will be specially refurbished for our show - will be Cursed Child’s Canadian home.”

David Mirvish said:

“Since it first opened in London in 2016, only three years ago, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has established itself as one of the most accomplished and remarkable productions in theatre history. In fact, it is more than a play: it is an event that has already galvanized audiences in London, New York and Melbourne.

“The show will soon do the same in upcoming productions in Hamburg and San Francisco. I can’t express strongly enough how honoured we are that Sonia and Colin have chosen Toronto to be the next location for their magnificent production.

“The Harry Potter stories have already touched the lives of millions and millions of people through the books and movies. I’m very excited about how this play has managed to continue the story on the theatre stage. Furthermore, because it has been brilliantly created by some of the world’s top theatre artists, the play has brought more and more people to live theatre, giving them an experience of pure theatricality that cannot be replicated in any other medium."

ABOUT THE PRODUCTION

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband, and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a new play by Jack Thorne, directed by John Tiffany.

Receiving universal acclaim for its breathtaking magic and stage wizardry, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the most awarded new play in theatre history, winning 25 major U.S. awards, including six Tony Awards, one of those for Best Play. It also won 24 major theatre awards in the U.K. and is the most awarded play in the history of the Olivier Awards in London, winning a record-breaking nine awards including Best New Play.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is now playing at the Palace Theatre in London, where it received its world premiere in July 2016; at the Lyric Theatre in New York, where it opened on Broadway in April 2018; and at the Princess Theatre in Melbourne, where it opened February 2019. Its exclusive U.S. West Coast premiere will begin in October 2019 at the Curran in San Francisco. The German premiere, the first foreign language production, will begin in spring 2020 at the Mehr! Theater am Großmarkt in Hamburg. The Canadian premiere will be the play’s sixth production.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child features movement by Steven Hoggett, set by Christine Jones, costumes by Katrina Lindsay, music & arrangements by Imogen Heap, lighting by Neil Austin, sound by Gareth Fry, illusions & magic by Jamie Harrison, music supervision & arrangements by Martin Lowe.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is produced in Toronto by originating producers Sonia Friedman Productions, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions, with Canadian producer David Mirvish.

ABOUT THE CREATORS

J.K. Rowling is the author of the seven Harry Potter novels and three companion books, which have sold over 500 million copies, been translated into over 80 languages, and been made into eight blockbuster films. Her other books include The Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults, and, written under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, the Cormoran Strike crime novels, which have been adapted for BBC television. J.K. Rowling is also a screenwriter, making her debut in 2016 with the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. The second in this five-film series, Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of Grindelwald, was released in 2018.

Jack Thorne writes for theatre, film, television and radio. His theatre credits include Hope and Let the Right One In, both directed by John Tiffany, A Christmas Carol and Woyzeck at the Old Vic, Junkyard, a Headlong, Rose Theatre Kingston, Bristol Old Vic & Theatr Clwyd co-production, The Solid Life of Sugar Water for the Graeae Theatre Company and the National Theatre, Bunny for Nabokov/UK tour, Stacy for the Tron, Arcola and Trafalgar Studios, and 2nd May 1997 and When You Cure Me for the Bush. His adaptations include The Physicists for the Donmar Warehouse and Stuart: A Life Backwards for HighTide. On film his credits include Wonder, War Book, A Long Way Down and The Scouting Book for Boys. For television his credits include Kiri, an episode of Electric Dreams, The Last Panthers, Don’t Take My Baby, This Is England, The Fades, Glue, Cast-Offs and National Treasure. In 2017 he won a BAFTA and an RTS Television award for Best Mini-Series (National Treasure). He won BAFTAs in 2016 for Best Mini-Series (This Is England ’90) and Best Single Drama (Don’t Take My Baby), and in 2012 for Best Drama Series (The Fades) and Best Mini-Series (This Is England ’88).

John Tiffany’s recent credits include Pinocchio for the National Theatre and Road for the Royal Court. He directed the musical Once for which he was the recipient of multiple awards both in the West End and on Broadway. As Associate Director of the Royal Court, his work also includes The Twits, Hope and The Pass. He was the director of Let The Right One In for the National Theatre of Scotland, which transferred to the Royal Court, West End and St. Ann’s Warehouse. His other work for the National Theatre of Scotland includes Macbeth (also Broadway), Enquirer, The Missing, Peter Pan, The House of Bernarda Alba, Transform Caithness: Hunter, Be Near Me, Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us, The Bacchae, Black Watch, for which he won the Olivier and Critics’ Circle Best Director Awards, Elizabeth Gordon Quinn and Home: Glasgow. Other recent credits include The Glass Menagerie at A.R.T, on Broadway, EIF and in the West End, and The Ambassador at BAM. Tiffany was Associate Director of the National Theatre of Scotland from 2005 to 2012, and was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University in the 2010-2011 academic year. For his work on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, he received the Olivier Award for Best Director, one of a record-breaking nine Olivier’s received by the production.

Sonia Friedman Productions (SFP) is an international production company responsible for some of the most successful theatre productions in London and New York.

Since 1990, SFP has developed, initiated and produced over 170 new productions and together the company has won a staggering 55 Olivier Awards, 24 Tonys and 2 BAFTAs.

In 2019, Sonia Friedman OBE was awarded ‘Producer of the Year’ at the Stage Awards for a record breaking fourth time. In 2018, Friedman was also featured in TIME 100, a list of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. In 2017 she took the number one spot in 'The Stage 100', becoming the first number one in the history of the compilation not to own or operate West End theatres and the first solo woman for almost 20 years.

Current productions include: the UK premiere of The Book of Mormon, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in London, New York and Melbourne, Mean Girls at the August Wilson Theatre, New York, The Ferryman at the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre, New York, The Jungle at the Curran, San Francisco, Fiddler on the Roof at the Playhouse Theatre, London, Rosmersholm at the Duke of York’s Theatre, London.

Forthcoming productions include: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Curran, San Francisco and Mehr! Theatre am Großmarkt, Hamburg, The Book of Mormon at Palace Theatre, Manchester, Sunderland Empire Theatre, Royal Theatre Carré, Amsterdam, Musikhuset, Aarhus and Theater 11, Zurich, Musical Dome, Cologne.

Previous theatre productions include: All About Eve, The Inheritance, Summer and Smoke, Dreamgirls, The Jungle at the Playhouse Theatre, London, and St. Ann’s Warehouse, New York, Consent, The Birthday Party, Ink, Hamlet starring Andrew Scott, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, The Ferryman Royal Court and Gielgud Theatre, London, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Travesties, The Glass Menagerie, Nice Fish, A Christmas Carol, Funny Girl, Farinelli and The King, Hamlet starring Benedict Cumberbatch, 1984, Sunny Afternoon, Bend It Like Beckham, The Nether, The River, Electra, King Charles III, Shakespeare in Love, Ghosts, Mojo, Chimerica, Merrily We Roll Along, Old Times, Twelfth Night and Richard III, A Chorus of Disapproval, The Sunshine Boys, Hay Fever, Absent Friends, Top Girls, Betrayal, Much Ado About Nothing, Clybourne Park, The Children’s Hour, A Flea in Her Ear, La Bête, All My Sons, Private Lives, Jerusalem, A Little Night Music, Legally Blonde, Othello, Arcadia, The Mountaintop, The Norman Conquests, A View From the Bridge, Dancing at Lughnasa, Maria Friedman: Re-Arranged, La Cage aux Folles, No Man’s Land, The Seagull, Under the Blue Sky, That Face, Dealer’s Choice, Hergés Adventures of Tintin, In Celebration, Boeing-Boeing, The Dumb Waiter, Rock ‘n’ Roll, Love Song, Faith Healer, Bent, Eh Joe, Donkeys’ Years, Otherwise Engaged, Celebration, Shoot the Crow, As You Like It, The Home Place, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, By the Bog of Cats, The Woman in White, Guantanamo: ‘Honor Bound to Defend Freedom’, Endgame, Jumpers, See You Next Tuesday, Hitchcock Blonde, Absolutely! {Perhaps}, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Ragtime, Macbeth, What the Night Is For, Afterplay, Up for Grabs, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Noises Off, On an Average Day, A Servant to Two Masters, Port Authority, Spoonface Steinberg and Speed-The-Plow.

TV productions include BBC’s Wolf Hall (co-producer), The Dresser (Exec Producer) and King Lear with Anthony Hopkins (Exec Producer).

For full details of SFPs theatre productions, please visit soniafriedman.com.

Colin Callender is an award-winning theatre, television and film producer who founded the New York and London production company Playground in 2012.

Playground’s recent Broadway productions include: Nora Ephron’s Tony[-]nominated Lucky Guy directed by George C. Wolfe starring Tom Hanks in his Broadway debut, Harvey Fierstein’s Tony-nominated Casa Valentina directed by Joe Mantello, the Tony Award-winning revival of musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford’s critically-acclaimed production of Macbeth at The Park Avenue Armory in New York, and the Tony Award-winning musical Dear Evan Hansen.

Television productions include: the BAFTA and Golden Globe[-]winning six-part BBC miniseries Wolf Hall directed by Peter Kosminsky starring Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis and Claire Foy, Richard Eyre’s acclaimed adaptation of Ronald Harwood’s The Dresser for the BBC starring Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins, Kenneth Lonergan’s award-winning adaptation of EM Forster’s Howards End for the BBC and Starz, Heidi Thomas’s adaptation of Little Women for the BBC and Masterpiece on PBS, Richard Eyre’s acclaimed adaptation of King Lear starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson for BBC and Amazon Prime Video, and, most recently, Lucy Kirkwood’s adaptation of her Olivier Award-winning play Chimerica for Channel 4.

Callender began his career as [a] stage manager at London’s Royal Court Theatre working with David Hare and Sam Shepard. He won an Emmy for his work as producer of the television adaptation of the RSC’s The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby for Channel 4, a Tony Award for Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award for Wolf Hall. As the long-time president of HBO Films, he was responsible for an unprecedented award-winning slate of movies and miniseries, including Mike Nichols’ celebrated adaptation of Angels in America starring Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson, and Gus van Sant’s Cannes Film Festival Palme d’Or winner, Elephant.

Callender is a Trustee of the New York Public Theater and the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He received a knighthood in the Queen’s 2016 New Year’s Honours list for his services to British film, theatre and television in the US.

For full details of Playground’s television and theatre productions, please visit playgroundentertainment.com

Harry Potter Theatrical Productions was founded by J.K. Rowling and Neil Blair in 2013 to develop and produce the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. The team from Harry Potter Theatrical Productions Ltd have worked closely with Sonia Friedman Productions and Colin Callender to produce the play, and also in controlling the international rights for the production.

www.HarryPotteronStage.com/CA

www.mirvish.com

Instagram: @CursedChildCAN

Twitter: @CursedChildCAN

Facebook: /CursedChildCAN