Broadway Licensing Global Introduces Competition for Schools to Produce Harry Potter and the Cursed Child High School Edition Productions in Their State
By Gary Symons
TLL Editor in Chief
Broadway Licensing Global is launching a contest to see who will stage the first official school production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
BLG and its family of imprints (Dramatists Play Service, Playscripts, and Stage Rights) is a specialist and global leader in theatrical licensing and distribution. The agency represents an astonishing portfolio of 38 Tony Awards and 49 Pulitzer Prize-winning productions. That portfolio includes some of the top writers musicians and productions in the world, including Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Lynn Nottage, Alan Menken, Stephen King, Elvis, the Bee-Gees, the Beatles, and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions.
The agency says it’s doubling down on its purpose to make everyone a theater teachers and administrators to argue why their theater program should be the first school in their state to produce the official High School Edition of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
Applications are open from Nov. 17 until Dec. 15, 2023, and schools selected to be first to license the show are asked to present their productions of the between Oct. 15 and Nov. 10, 2024.
All official version productions will follow any developmental pilot productions of the show, scheduled to take place in early 2024.
BLG is now in development with the show’s original creative team, including playwright Jack Thorne, director John Tiffany, producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender, and with sign-off by author J.K. Rowling, to adapt the script for high school and secondary school theaters. The changes will include a new, shorter runtime, as well as new creative techniques to convert the highly technical wizardry of the original production into magic and spells that schools can achieve, no matter their budget and/or socioeconomic backgrounds.
Under the competition guidelines, schools are asked to make the case for why their school and/or community is the most “magical” place to produce the debut of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child in their state or territory.
“High schools should think of “magical” as demonstrating how their school or drama program shows a passion for commitment to the arts, student inclusion and diversity, and ways they plan to promote the production within their communities,” says Sean Cercone, Founder and CEO of BLG.
Any school that is selected and accepts the opportunity to be the first in their state or territory to produce the show is still required to pay any required royalties and production package fees to license the show. Full competition guidelines for how to apply are available at: www.broadwaylicensing.com/wands-at-the-ready.
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