JK Rowling Working on Harry Potter Prequel Play

Will explore Harry's 'years as an orphan and outcast'
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Dec 20, 2013 10:45 AM CST
JK Rowling Working on Harry Potter Prequel Play
This is a Thursday, Sept. 27, 2012 file photo of British author JK Rowling as she poses for the photographers during a photo call to unveil her new book at the Southbank Centre in London.   (Lefteris Pitarakis)

Harry Potter has traveled from page to screen—and now to stage. JK Rowling said today she is working on a play about the boy wizard's life before he attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Rowling's seven-book saga begins when Harry, an unloved orphan grudgingly raised by his aunt and uncle, receives a letter informing him he is a wizard. Rowling said in a statement that the play will "explore the previously untold story of Harry's early years as an orphan and outcast."

Rowling will be a co-producer on the show, along with veteran British theater producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender. The statement said Rowling will collaborate with a writer but will not write the script herself. "Over the years I have received countless approaches about turning Harry Potter into a theatrical production, but Sonia and Colin's vision was the only one that really made sense to me, and which had the sensitivity, intensity and intimacy I thought appropriate for bringing Harry's story to the stage," Rowling said. No opening date has been set for the show. (More JK Rowling stories.)

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