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Harry Potter heads for the stage

Harry Potter creator J.K. Rowling says she is working on a play about Harry's early life, expected to hit British theaters within the next two years.

J.K. Rowling says she is collaborating on a Harry Potter prequel that will bring the boy wizard to the stage by 2016.
  • By Husna Haq Correspondent

Harry Potter fans have enjoyed the boy wizard and his world on the page, on the big screen, in games, amusement parks, even US postal stamps  and Starbucks drinks.

Now, they can experience his life on stage.

Potterphiles, rejoice: J.K. Rowling is working on a play about Harry Potter, to hit British stages within the next two years.

The play will focus on his life before he attended the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and as Rowling said in a statement, “explore the previously untold story of Harry’s early years as an orphan and outcast.”

Rowling will collaborate on the script with a writer, but will not write the script herself, according to a statement announcing the project as reported by the AP. She will co-produce the show with veteran British theater producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender.

Rowling said she had received many pitches for a stage adaptation of Harry Potter’s story, but that Friedman and Callender’s pitch convinced her to pursue the venture.

“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 in a statement.

Though the play has no writer or director yet, and no scheduled opening date, it is expected to premiere on London’s West End within the next two years, according to reports.

The seven-book Harry Potter saga has sold more than 450 million copies around the world and was made into eight Warner Bros. feature films. According to USA Today, Rowling has also made plans to create a film, “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” based on a Hogwarts textbook of the same name.

Next up on our holiday wish list: Harry hits Broadway.

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