Students at Riverside High School are getting ready to bring magic to life on stage next month with a production of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child — and they’ll be the first in Virginia to do so.
The Loudoun County school is one of 29 U.S. high schools that will stage the new high school adaptation of the Tony Award–winning show. As part of Broadway Licensing Global’s Wands at the Ready contest, schools sent in videos describing what made them “magic.” Marilyn Gilligan, Riverside’s theater director, says she knew it was a perfect opportunity, since she and many of her students are “diehard Harry Potter fans.”
The students involved the whole school in the video, with clips featuring different clubs and classes, plus administration and faculty, using the catchphrase, “We are Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” Chance McGill, a junior at the time, put together the video.
When Riverside won, Loudoun County Superintendent Aaron Spence announced the big news to the school. “You know anything’s possible if you have enough nerve,” Spence said in a Harry Potter–themed video. “You went for it, and now the journey has only just begun.”
When students found out, Gilligan says, “They lost their minds.”
Over the summer, she and the students raised funds, built the set, and practiced dance moves. One big step in the preparations was a trip to New York, where students saw the Broadway show and took a master dance class with cast member John Alix. (Alix has Virginia ties. He earned a bachelor’s in dance/choreography from Virginia Commonwealth University.)
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child takes place 19 years after the end of the original books, following Harry Potter’s son during the first year at Hogwarts. Many of the original characters make an appearance, along with new ones.
It’s a show with a lot of technical elements, Gilligan says, with details like a rotating stage — turned by hand by students behind the scenes — and mechanisms that will give the illusion of flying. Between the cast and tech crews, she anticipates that over 100 students will be involved in the show.
“It’s definitely that sort of magic that I just love so much, seeing all these other characters,” Gilligan says. “It has a great amount of opportunity again for actors, but also for the audience if they know Harry Potter at all.”
Where: Riverside High School, 19019 Upper Belmont Pl., Leesburg
When: October 18, 7 p.m., October 19, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m., October 20, 2 p.m., October 25, 7 p.m., and October 26, 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Feature image courtesy Marilyn Gilligan
This story originally ran in our September issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
