Trivia / Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

• Ability over Appearance:
  • Played With regarding Hermione, who has been played by black actresses (Noma Dumezweni and Rakie Ayola) on the West End, where in the movies she's white. Word of God confirms that having a Hermione with brown, bushy hair was more important than skin colour (it helps that Colorblind Casting is a very common practice in theatre). J.K. Rowling even came out in support of the casting, and noted herself that Hermione's race was not specified in the book series ^note despite having personally illustrated the character as white beforehand, implying there was no Race Lift in the casting.
  • Paul Thornley, the original Ron, lacks Ron's trademark red hair. However, Paul is a natural redhead; red hair fades with age, so a middle-aged Ron having less vibrant hair than in his youth is actually realistic.
• Acting for Two: Cursed Child has a large cast, but with Potter's massive cast, this trope was going to be a necessity. The Broadway casting call confirms that this mindset is still in place. The multiple roles are as follows (using the original West End cast):
  • Paul Bentall plays Uncle Vernon, Snape and Voldemort.
  • Helena Lymbery plays Aunt Petunia, Madam Hooch and Dolores Umbridge.
  • Barry McCarthy plays Amos Diggory and Albus Dumbledore.
  • Sandy McDade plays the Trolley Witch and McGonagall.
  • Tom Milligan plays James Potter Jr., Cedric Diggory and James Potter Sr.
  • Jack North plays Dudley, Karl Jenkins and Viktor Krum.
  • Cherelle Skeete plays Rose and Young Hermione. This is the only one to be explicitly mentioned in the script.
  • Chris Jarman plays the Sorting Hat and Hagrid.
  • Annabel Baldwin plays Moaning Myrtle and Lily Potter Sr.
• Dawson Casting: Albus, Rose and Scorpius are all played by actors in their early twenties. Given that their characters age three years very early in the play, it's a bit more understandable, but even at their oldest, the characters are just 14 years old.
• Dueling Works: The show Puffs the Play overlapped with this on Broadway for a time - another show based around the Harry Potter books and featuring Cedric Diggory as a major character.
• God Never Said That: Around the time that the project was announced, there was a lot of buzz that Cursed Child would be set before the events of the series, and that presumably therefore it would be a Roald Dahl-esque story centering around Harry and the Dursleys before he learned he was a wizard. Rowling eventually clarified that it would not be a prequel, and that it would be set after the epilogue.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: Inverted. The Special Rehearsal Edition of the script, which is based on the previews version of the play and has significantly less content and lacks the opening-night changes of the upcoming Definitive Edition, will cease publication once the latter is released.
• Meaningful Release Date: The script for the book was released on July 31, 2016 - one day after the play opens, and the birthday shared by Harry and J. K. Rowling.
• No Export for You: Averted last-minute. Since going to see a play at the Palace Theatre in London is not an opportunity everyone has access to, the preview-night script was released as a book on July 31, with the Definitive Edition releasing almost a year later.
• The Other Darrin: Enforced, as is tradition with any theatrical production. The Broadway run saw a mostly new cast, while the West End run replaced its principal cast on May 24, 2017, with Jamie Glover, Thomas Aldridge and Rakie Ayola as the new Power Trio, among others.
• Role Reprise: Seven members of the West End cast ^note Jamie Parker (Harry Potter), Noma Dumezweni (Hermione Granger), Paul Thornley (Ron Weasley), Poppy Miller (Ginny Potter), Sam Clemmett (Albus Potter), Alex Price (Draco Malfoy) and Anthony Boyle (Scorpius Malfoy) reprised their roles when Cursed Child opened on Broadway in 2018.
• Sequel Gap: The play debuted nine years after the publication of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows.
• Spoiled by the Cast List: The show program pretty much gives away the appearances of Severus Snape, Voldemort, Dolores Umbridge, Cedric Diggory, and other characters that are supposed to have surprise appearances. Because of this, the London and Broadway programs have a Spoiler Alert notice telling the reader not to read the cast list until after seeing both parts.^note It helps that each entry lists the actor's name first, in bold, followed by the characters they play, in normal text.
  • However, the London production has a screen in the foyer displaying a full cast list, including those playing the spoilered characters above, defeating the purpose of the program's Spoiler Alert notice. The Broadway production instead lists the full company without stating who plays what character, and the cast change board states that roles usually played by [principal actor] will be played by [standby or understudy].
• What Could Have Been: Live owls were used during the first preview period, but the sequence was scrapped after an owl escaped during a performance.
• Writer Revolt: Some theorize that the pride month poster the play's Twitter had put out was a subtle Take That! to J. K. Rowling, who since 2018, has gained controversy for her increasingly transphobic views and statements on social media. This is backed by the fact that it uses the 2018 progress pride flag, which features the trans flag colors as part of the flag.

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