'Harry Potter' Play Being Written by J.K. Rowling Will Focus on Harry's Pre-Wizard Years
Harry Potter fans, rejoice! J.K. Rowling just announced that she is working on a play that will feature the beloved character in the years leading up to his learning that he is a wizard. The popular seven-book series has sold more than 450 million copies around the world and is still incredibly popular with fans of all ages.
Rowling said in a statement that the play will "explore the previously untold story of Harry's early years as an orphan and outcast."
Of course, as fans know, the young wizard was orphaned when his mother and father were killed by the evil Lord Voldemort. He was sent to live with his "muggle" (or non-magical) relatives until he turned 11 and learned he was truly a wizard and went on to do great things at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
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Rowling will be a co-producer of the show and work with British theater producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callendar. She will also work with a writer and not write the script herself; so far, that writer has not been named, and no director has been named either, but Rowling is excited about the project.
"Over the years I have received countless approaches about turning Harry Potter into a theatrical production, but Sonia and Colin's vision was the 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 explained.
The author is also working on a screenplay for "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them," the first movie in a series inspired by Harry Potter's textbook of the same name and will center on the story of the book's author, Newt Scamander. The project has special meaning for Rowling.
"Having lived for so long in my fictional universe, I feel very protective of it and I already knew a lot about Newt. As hard-core Harry Potter fans will know, I liked him so much that I even married his grandson, Rolf, to one of my favorite characters from the Harry Potter series, Luna Lovegood," Rowling wrote on her website.
