VARIOUS DATES NOVEMBER 8-17

At Cape Hatteras Secondary, it’s Harry Potter magic  

By Mary Ellen Riddle | Outer Banks Voice on September 30, 2024

CHSS selected as only NC school to perform Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

By Mary Ellen Riddle    | Outer Banks Voice

This November, Cape Hatteras Secondary School will host multiple performances of the Broadway play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The school of 300 students recently won the rights to be the only school in North Carolina to present the play that is currently doing a national tour. A call for applicants from Broadway Licensing Global went out to every state in the nation with one school winning per state.

The competition required schools to create a video expressing why they think their school is magical.

The school’s three theatre directors—Blake Taft, Jordan Tomberlin, and Michelle Rieder—felt it would be a more powerful message to let the students speak for themselves and express why Cape Hatteras Secondary School is the most magical place in the state.

“We helped them a little bit with storyline and concept, but we let them take the lead on a lot of it,” says Taft. “The students alluded to the magic of the island, specifically being so close to the coast, our supportive community, and everyone’s commitment to creating a safe space to perform and be their authentic selves.”  They also revealed the adversities they face living on a small island, and how these challenges allowed them to be even more creative.

The “magical” aspect of the call for entries is a perfect fit as Harry Potter is a wizard by birth and featured in seven books written by British author JK Rowling that are popular worldwide having been translated into 85 languages. The play, co-written by Rowling, Jack Thorne, and John Tiffany, follows the seventh and last book in the series.

Taft says that according to the licensing company, they are not allowed to say too much about the play until it debuts at the school. But he notes that it is a little bit different from the books, as the timeline begins 19 years after the seventh book when Harry Potter is no longer a student at the Hogwarts School of Magic and Wizardry, but a father of three children who works at the Ministry of Magic.

A synopsis from JK Rowling’s website helps set the scene.

“While he [Harry] struggles with a personal history that refuses to stay in the past, his youngest son Albus must grapple with the weight of the family legacy he never asked for. As past and present fuse ominously, both father and son learn the uncomfortable truth: sometimes, darkness comes from unexpected places.”

As the roughly two-and-a-half-hour play unfolds over a couple of years, the cast must age as a result. So two of the school’s younger students—8th and 9th graders, Devin Fulcher who is playing Albus Potter, Harry Potter’s son, and Sam Davis, who is playing Scorpius Malfoy, the son of Harry Potter’s arch enemy Draco Malfoy—were cast in leading roles, therefore having the most lines and stage time, which is unusual because they are so younger students, says Tomberlin.

But it was not just being young that won them the roles. “They were chosen because they showed us in the audition process their willingness to prepare, their ability to understand the character, and overall focus in the audition room,” says Taft.

As the contract calls for the play to open by Nov. 10, the school had to begin rehearsals earlier than they have with past plays. So, the kids were given preliminary scripts to read over the summer with practice starting the second week of August. Some days, the students have had to practice for as many as seven hours with four or five rehearsals a week. This made for lengthy school days as once school started, a play participant’s day also included regular classes, club meetings and sports practices all happening before rehearsing for the play.

Mastering the Queen’s English was another litmus test for the actors. “British dialect was a big one,” says Taft, since the play is set in England. The directors also watched the auditions where students had to do a cold reading of a monologue. They were looking for actors showing depth and knowledge of a character. Jonas Eatmon, the 18-year-old senior who plays Harry Potter, knocked it out of the park, says Tomberlin. “He is a fabulous actor,” she says. “He is unbelievable on stage.”

The students, school departments and even outsiders are coming together to lend a hand. Principal Dr. Beth Rooks says she has been “sparked” by the excitement and the unity that the play has brought to the school, including having kids reading Harry Potter in the classrooms.

About 50 kids are involved as either cast members or backstage people such as stage manager, light board and soundboard operators, costume assistants and wardrobe crew. The carpentry class is building scenery.

As the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is Harry Potter’s alma mater, the Cape Hatteras Secondary School’s art teacher is sponsoring a contest to design Hogwarts banners. And all the school bulletin boards are alive with Harry Potter themes. Even this year’s school yearbook has a magic theme.

Since magic plays a large role in the play, the students are working with illusionist Eddie Haggerty who does up-close magic, says Taft. Up-close magic generally means the magician is performing no more than 10 feet from the audience. A close friend of Taft’s, Haggerty runs a summer theatre program in Washington, DC, where he teaches magic to kids. The students had a two-hour rehearsal practicing casting spells and understanding how their magic wands—also built by the carpentry class—feel in their hands.

Throw in puppetry and dance sequences and you have a lively play featuring dedicated folk tackling many learning curves. And it could not happen without three dedicated directors who bring collective experience in teaching theatre, costuming, lighting and sound and ticket sales and fundraising efforts by the students.

To that end, $600 was raised at the recent Day at the Docks event where students took donations that allowed donors to paint on a collaborate mural meant to represent the general theme of the show that will be on exhibit at the play. They also sold cotton candy at the Hatteras Island gala.

Taft went to school for theatre in Northern Virginia, and in part of that program, he did some theatre education courses and taught in public schools in Fairfax County and see how the theatre programs ran.

“And I will say like I have never seen a school as involved and supportive of this program and specifically this production as this one is,” says Taft of Cape Hatteras Secondary School. “And so, I think it’s really something magical to see.”

The play runs Nov. 8 at 7 p.m., Nov. 9 at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Nov. 10 at 2 p.m. and Nov. 16 and 17 at 7 p.m. Tickets are on sale at the Cape Hatteras Secondary School office, United Bank in Buxton, and the Froggy Dog Restaurant in Avon. They cost $10 for students and $15 for adults.