Toronto production of 'Harry Potter and the Cursed Child' to close in July

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Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is coming to end on July 2 at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre in Toronto after opening less than 10 months ago.

Mirvish Productions have announced in a press release that the Tony and Olivier award-winning show, which was written by J.K. Rowling and his based on her bestselling fantasy series, will come to an early end.

“We are delighted with all that this production has achieved,” Toronto producer David Mirvish said. “Single-handedly it helped us relaunch large-scale theatre in Toronto after the devastation the COVID-19 pandemic wrought.

“After being shuttered for two years we wanted to play an important role in reviving Toronto’s theatre and downtown – its restaurants, hotels, shops and service industries. The big question was: would audiences return? It was Harry Potter and the Cursed Child that definitively answered this question.”

In December, the play broke a Canadian box office record for the week of Dec. 26 to 31, playing to 100% capacity and pulling in $1,984,046 in sales – the highest weekly gross for a non-musical play in Canadian theatre history.

But in an interview with The Canadian Press, Mirvish conceded that high operating costs affected the ability to keep the production going in Toronto.

“In other times, it probably would’ve gone longer,” he said. “If we hadn’t had to deal with the pandemic, it would have been a different situation.”

According to CP, the production, which saw the two-part play condensed into one show, cost $25 million to mount with Mirvish spending another $5 million to make changes to the theatre to accommodate the staging.

“We are extremely proud of our Toronto production and to be the longest-running professional play in the history of Canada is an extraordinary achievement,” producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender added in a statement. “Having our production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre has been such a joy and we look forward to an amazing final 11 weeks in Canada.”

Set 19 years after the events of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, productions of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child are playing in cities worldwide, including New York City and London. The story centres on Harry’s son Albus, who wrestles with his father’s legacy as he prepares to head to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

A Toronto production with an all-Canadian cast was originally slated to open in 2020 before being delayed to 2022 due to the coronavirus pandemic

For tickets and info on the Cursed Child’s final performances, visit mirvish.com.

mdaniell@postmedia.com