J.K. Rowling is releasing a new Harry Potter book! Well, sorta. As previously reported, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a stage play coming to the West End in London this summer. Today, Pottermore announced that Rowling and her Cursed Child creative team including Jack Thorne and John Tiffany will release a script book of the play. It isn’t entirely made clear what this means exactly, but I guess we are to assume that the new book, transcribed from the stage play, will read more like a play than the typical narrated Potter books we’re accustomed to. Still, this is huge for Potter fans everywhere; if you can’t make it to London to see Cursed Child live, you’ll still be able to enjoy “the official eighth story in Harry Potter canon.” Score!
The stage play is broken up into two separate performances meant to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or across two consecutive evenings. The script book will combine it all together and is officially titled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts 1 & 2. Do you consider yourself a devout Potter-head? If so, take note: Rowling & co. will release two different versions of the book this summer. The first is being dubbed the “Special Rehearsal Edition” and it will comprise of the version of the play script at the time of the play’s preview performances (which begin June 7). Eventually, that will be replaced with the “Definitive Collector’s Edition” following the first official performance of the play that’s planned for July 30.
Looking for more details about the play’s plot and cast? For that you’ll have to jump after the break!
Since closing the final chapter on the Harry Potter saga in 2007 with The Deathly Hallows, author J.K. Rowling has only revisited Harry, Ron, and Hermione in a Rita Skeeter column featured on Pottermore and in her tweets. The Cursed Child is being billed as “the eighth story” that is being told in two parts due to its “epic” nature. Here’s what we know so far. Spoilers ahead. It takes place 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, a time after Harry is seen waving off his children at Platform Nine and Three-Quarters in Book 7’s epilogue. The official synopsis reads:
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.
In addition to Harry’s son Albus Severus Potter, Harry, Hermione, and Ron are confirmed to return as well and they’ve already been cast. Jamie Parker, who originated the role of Scripps in The History Boys, has been cast as Harry. He is joined by Olivier Award-winning actress Noma Dumezweni as Hermione (who just happens to be African American, how cool!), and theatre, film and TV actor Paul Thornley as Ron. Here’s a picture of the three of them.
If you thought you only had Rowling’s upcoming spinoff film Fantastic Beasts to satiate your Wizarding World fix, news that an eighth Harry Potter book is in the works should really get you going. My spirit just got Wingardium Leviosa’d!
[Via Pottermore]