If you know me even a little, you know two things about me: I love all things Harry Potter, and I love a good play. So when those two worlds collide, I’m basically a kid on Christmas morning. I got to experience that exact collision when I saw Harry Potter and the Cursed Child while we were in New York, and I have been thinking about it ever since.
There is something so special about seeing the wizarding world brought to life outside the pages of a book or the frame of a movie screen. I raised my kids with Harry, Ron, and Hermione. I’ve sorted myself into a house more times than I’d like to admit. So sitting in a Broadway theater, watching that world unfold live, just feet away from me, felt like getting to visit somewhere I’d only ever dreamed about.
That’s why I could hardly contain myself when I found out the national tour was making its way to Salt Lake City. I didn’t have to hop a flight back to New York to relive the magic. It was coming to me, right in our own backyard.
For those who aren’t familiar, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child picks up nineteen years after the events of Deathly Hallows, right where the books left off. Harry Potter is grown, married, and now a father sending his own son off to Hogwarts. That son, Albus Severus Potter, struggles under the weight of his father’s legacy, and things get complicated fast when he becomes close friends with Scorpius Malfoy, son of Harry’s old rival Draco. What follows is a story that reaches back into the past and forward into the future all at once, full of secrets, time-turners, and the kind of consequences that ripple across everything and everyone we love from the original series.
Here’s the thing about Harry Potter’s world: it’s hard enough to imagine bringing it to life in a movie with unlimited special effects budgets and green screens. Now imagine trying to do it live, on a stage, in front of an audience who will absolutely notice if the magic doesn’t feel real. It seems like an almost impossible task. And yet, this production pulls it off in a way that left me completely stunned.
The special effects are where this show truly earns every bit of its reputation. I watched costumes change on actors right before my eyes, with no curtain, no blackout, nothing to hide behind, and I still cannot tell you how they did it. Characters transform, disappear, and reappear in ways that make you lean forward in your seat, trying to catch the trick, and you simply can’t. There is so much happening on that stage that feels genuinely impossible, and that impossibility is exactly the point. It’s worth the ticket price for those moments alone.
I’ll be honest with you: the story of Cursed Child has never been my favorite chapter in the Harry Potter universe. It’s not the tale I’d pick first off the shelf. But I found myself completely swept up in it anyway, because watching it performed live gives it a life and urgency that reading it never quite captured for me. You can’t help but get pulled in.
Knowing how astonishing the effects were in New York, I’ll admit I wondered how a touring production could possibly hold onto that same level of magic while packing up and moving from city to city. I’m happy to tell you, having now seen it firsthand, that while a few elements are scaled or adapted for the road, the heart of the spectacle is absolutely intact. They have done a beautiful job carrying that magic across the country, and Salt Lake City is getting the real thing.
I won’t spoil anything, because half the joy of this show is not knowing what’s coming. But there is a moment, and if you’ve seen it you already know exactly which one I mean, that genuinely might take your breath away. I actually heard the audience gasp around me. That kind of collective, unscripted reaction is rare, and it’s worth experiencing for yourself.
If you love the world of Harry Potter even a fraction as much as I do, or if you simply love watching a production pull off something that feels genuinely magical, this is a must-see. This is a limited engagement, running only September 19 through October 11 at the Eccles Theater in downtown Salt Lake City, so once it closes, that’s it. Tickets can be purchased through the Eccles’ official ticketing site, and given how quickly Harry Potter fans tend to show up for anything wizarding world related, I would not wait to grab your seats. This is exactly the kind of show that sells out, especially as the run gets closer to its final week.
Grab your wand, grab your ticket, and go see for yourself how they pull off that magic. You won’t regret it.
*we were invited to facilitate a feature, all opinions are our own*
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