Hoboken, NJ Picked As First Place In North America For 'Harry Potter' High School Show

HOBOKEN, NJ — It's unusual for a show to be performed at a high school while it's still on Broadway, and extra special when a school's theater department gets to be the first in North America to pilot such a show. Thursday night, Broadway Licensing Group CEO Sean Cercone announced that the first North American school production of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" will take place at Hoboken High School in spring 2024.

It will be the pilot for the show, meaning that it will set the stage for how schools around the world will perform it.

The show will have another pilot in the U.K. around the same time, and then it will be open to other districts.

Meanwhile, the play, which opened in London's West End in 2016, is still being performed on Broadway.

At a special reveal on Thursday evening in front of a packed audience in Hoboken— the mile-square New Jersey city just across the river from the lights of Broadway — Cercone said that the auditions and work on the district-wide show over the next eight months will "impact millions of other children around the world."

The Broadway show is known for the quality of its illusions and theatrical wizardry. It follows the events that take place 19 years after "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" (the seventh book about the boy wizard), including the exploits of a new generation of witches and wizards.

Cercone, who only recently acquired the rights for the school shows, said that Hoboken was chosen because it's a "It's the most diverse, loving, creative community we could have found, and it was right in our own backyard."

In the announcement at Hoboken High School's auditorium, he singled out school Theater Program Director Danielle Miller, Schools Superintendent Dr. Christine Johnson, local businesses, and the community for adding to that atmosphere. He said the Hoboken community is one "That really embraces the arts."

The district and high school have won awards for their theater productions for more than a decade.

Miller and Johnson were among several school district professionals at the event, and were joined by crew members from the current Harry Potter show on Broadway and by members of Cercone's organization.

Miller said she embraces the motto, "Make every person a theater person." The district-wide auditions have allowed students who'd never starred in productions to land key roles.

It was only announced last week that the show will be available for high school productions starting next year.

The show will be directed by high school theater teacher Derek Kinnear, but school personnel will work with Cercone's organization.

Schools interested in performing the play after Hoboken’s show can sign up for more information here: https://licensecursedchild.com/

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