The Tony- and Olivier Award winning Harry Potter and the Cursed Child will reopen on Broadway and elsewhere in North America after undergoing a slight reducio charm. Once the show returns from its coronavirus hiatus, it will be presented as one show instead of in two parts. Playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany, who conceived the story with original series author J.K. Rowling, say they have been at work on the condensed version as theatres remained dark.

The newly staged version will begin November 16 at the Lyric Theatre. Meanwhile, performances at the Curran in San Francisco will begin January 11, 2022, with the Canadian premiere taking up the Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto in May.

"Given the challenges of remounting and running a two-part show in the US on the scale of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, and the commercial challenges faced by the theatre and tourism industries emerging from the global shutdowns, we are excited to be able to move forward with a new version of the play that allows audiences to enjoy the complete Cursed Child adventure in one sitting eight times a week," producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender said in a group statement.

The Broadway production (a costly one, capitalized at over $35 million plus a $33 million renovation of the theatre) quickly became a hot ticket and a box office frontrunner upon opening in spring 2018. While capacity remained around 100 percent, the weekly gross eventually waned as the average ticket price dipped below $100. One potential factor: the two-part structure of the show, creating a time commitment twice that (or longer, even) of most family-friendly theatre offerings. Still, the omnipresent lure of the Wizarding World helped the show secure the title of highest grossing non-musical play less than a year after opening.

Tickets for the Broadway run will go on sale to the public July 12, with the San Francisco box office opening July 21. Casting for all three North American bows will be confirmed later.