Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, Parts 1 & 2 by JK Rowling, adapted by John Tiffany and Jack Thorne

Summary from Goodreads:
The Eighth Story. Nineteen Years Later.

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, a new play by Jack Thorne, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the eighth story in the Harry Potter series and the first official Harry Potter story to be presented on stage. The play will receive its world premiere in London’s West End on July 30, 2016.

It was always difficult being Harry Potter and it isn’t much easier now that he is an overworked employee of the Ministry of Magic, a husband and father of three school-age children.

While Harry grapples with a past that refuses to stay where it belongs, his youngest son Albus must struggle with the weight of a family legacy he never wanted. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.

My kingdom for enough money to fly to London and see this live.

OK, so everyone under the sun is going to have a review of HP8.  I'm going to throw out a few thoughts here and otherwise advise you to read it yourself if you want to have an opinion.  I'm going to try not to spoil the plot.

First, I did like this a lot.  I thought it was very intriguing and well-paced (Act II cliff-hanger, whaaaaaat) with a lot of good ideas.  Rowling plays with a lot of themes she couldn't in the original seven books.  What kind of a parent would Harry be and how would he deal with a child both so very different and so very much the same as himself?  How does being "the boy who lived" still weigh on Harry?  How does the legacy weigh on his children?  How do his adult relationships change?

Second, given that this is a play there is no narrator unlike the previous seven books.  All those books - with the exception of the first chapter/prologue of each - were narrated via Harry's limited, and often quite biased, perspective.  With a play, there is no filter.  Each character speaks directly to the reader/audience.  And I find that the most interesting aspect of Cursed Child.  How would the series have turned out if Rowling had used a different type of narrator or shifted the perspective between characters?  Very different, I think.

Third, the stagecraft required of this play is going to be of the mind-bogglingly difficult kind.  I would love to see that set design.  (And the stage directions are very amusing to read.)

Dear FTC: I bought my copy of this book - OF COURSE - after flying back from Atlanta in the morning and working a release party at the bookstore at night.

Wicked

I'm very rarely at the theatre these days - having a major flood take out all the performance venues in your area will do that to your social life. Wicked came to Des Moines for a few weeks and my youngest brother asked if we (parents, brother, sister, and sister-in-law) would like to go see a performance as his birthday present. Pretty nice present, eh?

I really can't say there's anything not to like about Wicked as a musical - the story is a great adaptation of the Maguire book and the Stephen Schwartz score is amazing. If I hadn't known it was a Schwartz score, I probably would have guessed that anyway. The costumes are fabulous and the sets are amazing with a steam-punk vibe.

Major, major kudos to the woman who portrayed Elphaba (don't have the program on me right now so name to be filled in later). She was the standby, not first cast, and blew everyone's socks off. Amazing voice. Truly spine-tingling, especially "The Wizard and I" and "Defying Gravity" (I dare anyone to dislike that song).

The performance's only let-downs came from Glinda (who seemed to be doing a "Kristen Chenoweth does Glinda" thing and it didn't feel natural) and the performance venue. I'm not going to harp on the actress - maybe her performance was having an off night. I will complain about the acoustics in the Civic Center. I actually performed there in high school for State Jazz Band competition and it's like performing in a big, fuzzy barrel; being an audience member isn't much better. The auditorium isn't very live (the walls have thin carpeting on them) so the sound starts to muffle about halfway into the auditorium even if the performers are miked combined with the fact that this auditorium is very long (there's no center aisle (s) so the rows have to be much wider to allow people to walk all the way to the center of the row). The solo performers had enough diction to be understood in the back of the auditorium but the ensemble really should have been biting off the consonants during group pieces. We lost a lot of chorus lyrics which is too bad because "No One Mourns the Wicked" is a great number. The piece about "Dear Old Shiz" was really garbled and even I couldn't make out the words (my brother compared it to watching an opera in a language you don't speak).

I'm very happy I finally got a chance to see this musical, having heard the original cast recording sooo many times via friends. I also, whilst digging around on IMDB to find a picture of Idina Menzel (love her!) to show my mom, noticed that a movie version of Wicked has gone into pre-production with some of the original Broadway cast rumoured to be involved. If true....that would be fantastic!!