Breaking News: HARRY POTTER AND THE CURSED CHILD Will Apparate to Australia

Sonia Friedman, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions, producers of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, have today confirmed the record-breaking production will open in early 2019 in Melbourne, Australia, exclusively and only at Melbourne's Princess Theatre.

Performance dates and ticketing details will be announced soon. Visit HarryPotterThePlay.com to sign up to the mailing list and receive ticketing information and news.

Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews said; "Exclusive to our region, this award-winning production will arrive in Victoria after its world premiere in London's West End and a highly anticipated opening on Broadway. To secure a production of this calibre is a testament to Melbourne's standing as an arts and cultural capital and leading global city for theatre. We encourage all Victorians, and our friends from across the country, Asia and the world, to join us in welcoming Harry Potter and the Cursed Child to Melbourne."

Producers Sonia Friedman and Colin Callender said: "When we embarked on this journey, it was an objective to ensure we could get the production to Australia as soon as logistically possible. You can't ever assume a new play is going to have a further life, but we knew that if Harry Potter and the Cursed Child did have a life beyond London and Broadway, that the next stop would be here.

"The Harry Potter stories have millions of fans across the globe, and so we're very happy and proud that we're able to bring our beautiful production to Australia, where we know a whole new audience will experience the eighth story. Melbourne is a fantastic city with such wonderful culture and heritage, and so we're thrilled that the gorgeous Princess Theatre will be Cursed Child's next home."

Based on an original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is a new play by Jack Thorne, directed by John Tiffany. The production is one play presented in two parts. Both parts are intended to be seen in order on the same day (matinee and evening) or on two consecutive evenings.

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 critically acclaimed production received its world premiere in July 2016 at the Palace Theatre in London where it continues to play to sold out houses.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child has won 22 major theatre awards in the UK and is the most awarded production in the history of Britain's prestigious Olivier Awards, winning a record- breaking nine awards earlier this year including Best New Play and Best Director.

The play will open on Broadway in April 2018 at the Lyric Theatre in New York.

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.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is directed by John Tiffany with movement by Steven Hoggett, set by Christine Jones, costumes by Katrina Lindsay, music & arrangements by Imogen Heap, lighting by Neil Austin, sound by Gareth Fry, illusions & magic by Jamie Harrison and music supervision & arrangements by Martin Lowe. International Casting Consultant is Jim Carnahan and Australian casting by Janine Snape. Executive Producer of the Australian production is Michael Cassel.

Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is produced by Sonia Friedman Productions, Colin Callender and Harry Potter Theatrical Productions.

J.K. Rowling is the author of the seven Harry Potter novels, which have sold over 450 million copies and have been translated into 80 languages, and three companion books originally published for charity. She has also written The Casual Vacancy, a novel for adults, and, under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith, is the author of the Cormoran Strike crime series which have been adapted as a major new television series for BBC One, produced by Bronte? Film and Television. J.K. Rowling made her screenwriting debut in 2016 with the film Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a further extension of the Wizarding World and the start of a new five-film series.

Jack Thorne writes for theatre, film, television and radio. His theatre credits include Hope and Let The Right One In, both directed by John Tiffany, Woyzeck at the Old Vic, Junkyard, a Headlong, Rose Theatre Kingston, Bristol Old Vic and Theatr Clwyd co-production, The Solid Life of Sugarwater for the Graeae Theatre Company and the National Theatre, Bunny for Nabokov/UK tour, Stacy for the Tron, Arcola and Trafalgar Studios, 2nd May 1997 and When You Cure Me for the Bush. His adaptations include The Physicists for the Donmar Warehouse and Stuart: A Life Backwards for Hightide. On film his credits include the upcoming Wonder as well as War Book, A Long Way Down and The Scouting Book for Boys. For television his credits include the upcoming "His Dark Materials", "ThE Eddy" (directed by Damien Chazelle), "Kiri", and episode of "Electric Dreams", "National Treasure", "The Last Panthers", "Don't Take My Baby", "This Is England", "The Fades", "Glue" and "Cast-Offs." In 2017 he won a BAFTA and an RTS Television award for Best Mini-Series (National Treasure). He won 2016 BAFTAs for Best Mini- Series ("This Is England '90") and Best Single Drama ("Don't Take My Baby"), and in 2012 won Best Series ("The Fades") and Best Serial ("This Is England '88"). This Christmas his adaptation of A Christmas Carol will open at London's Old Vic Theatre.

John Tiffany directed Once for which he was the recipient of multiple awards both in the West End and on Broadway. As Associate Director of the Royal Court, his work includes Road, The Twits, Hope and The Pass. He was the director of Let The Right One In for the National Theatre of Scotland, which transferred to the Royal Court, West End and St. Ann's Warehouse. His other work for the National Theatre of Scotland includes Macbeth (also Broadway), Enquirer, The Missing, Peter Pan, The House of Bernarda Alba, Transform Caithness: Hunter, Be Near Me, Nobody Will Ever Forgive Us, The Bacchae, Black Watch, for which he won the Olivier and Critics' Circle Best Director Awards, Elizabeth Gordon Quinn and Home: Glasgow. Other recent credits include The Glass Menagerie at A.R.T, on Broadway, EIF and in the West End, and The Ambassador at BAM. Tiffany was Associate Director of the National Theatre of Scotland from 2005 to 2012, and was a Radcliffe Fellow at Harvard University in the 2010-2011 academic year. For his work on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, he received the Olivier Award for Best Director, one of a record-breaking nine Oliviers received by the production.

Sonia Friedman Productions (SFP) is a West End and Broadway Production Company responsible for some of the most successful theatre productions in London and New York.

Since 1990, SFP has developed, initiated and produced over 160 new productions and together they have won a staggering 44 Olivier Awards including a record-breaking 14 at the 2014 Awards. The company has also won 18 Tonys and two BAFTAs.

This year, Sonia Friedman OBE was awarded "Producer of the Year" at the Stage Awards for the third successive year and also took the number one spot in "The Stage 100," becoming the first number one in the history of the compilation not to own or operate West End theatres and the first solo woman for almost 20 years.

SFP's many and varied West End and Broadway productions include: the UK premiere of The Book of Mormon, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the UK premiere of Dreamgirls, The Ferryman, 1984, Hamlet, The Birthday Party, Ink, Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Travesties, Our Ladies of Perpetual Succour, The Glass Menagerie, Nice Fish, A Christmas Carol, Funny Girl West End and UK tour, Farinelli and The King, Hamlet, 1984, Sunny Afternoon West End and UK tour, Bend It Like Beckham, The Nether, The River, Electra, King Charles III, Shakespeare in Love, Ghosts, Mojo, Chimerica, Merrily We Roll Along, Old Times, Twelfth Night and Richard III, A Chorus of Disapproval, The Sunshine Boys, Hay Fever, Absent Friends, Top Girls, Betrayal, Much Ado About Nothing, Clybourne Park, The Children's Hour, A Flea in Her Ear, La Be?te, All My Sons, Private Lives, Jerusalem, A Little Night Music, Legally Blonde, Othello, Arcadia, The Mountaintop, The Norman Conquests, A View From the Bridge, Dancing at Lughnasa, Maria Friedman: Re-Arranged, La Cage aux Folles, No Man's Land, The Seagull, Under the Blue Sky, That Face, Dealer's Choice, Herge?s Adventures of Tintin, In Celebration, Boeing- Boeing, The Dumb Waiter, Rock 'n' Roll, Love Song, Faith Healer, Bent, Eh Joe, Donkeys' Years, Otherwise Engaged, Celebration, Shoot the Crow, As You Like It, The Home Place, Whose Life Is It Anyway?, By the Bog of Cats, The Woman in White, Guantanamo: 'Honor Bound to Defend Freedom', Endgame, Jumpers, See You Next Tuesday, Hitchcock Blonde, Absolutely! {Perhaps}, Sexual Perversity in Chicago, Ragtime, Macbeth, What the Night Is For, Afterplay, Up for Grabs, A Day in the Death of Joe Egg, Noises Off, On an Average Day, A Servant to Two Masters, Port Authority, Spoonface Steinberg and Speed-the-Plow.

Forthcoming productions include: King Lear, starring Anthony Hopkins for the BBC (also with Colin Callender, Farinelli and the King starring Mark Rylance at the Belasco Theater, New York, The Birthday Party at the Harold Pinter Theatre, London, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child at the Lyric Theatre, New York, and Travesties at The American Airlines Theatre, New York.

For a full list of SFP's theatre credits, visit soniafriedman.com.

Colin Callender is an award-winning theatre, television and film producer who founded the New York and London Production Company Playground in 2012.

Playground's recent Broadway productions include: Nora Ephron's Tony nominated Lucky Guy directed by George C. Wolfe starring Tom Hanks in his Broadway debut, Harvey Fierstein's Tony- nominated Casa Valentina directed by Joe Mantello, the Tony Award-winning revival of musical Hedwig and the Angry Inch, Jez Butterworth's The River directed by Ian Rickson starring Hugh Jackman, Kenneth Branagh and Rob Ashford's critically-acclaimed production of Macbeth at The Park Avenue Armory in New York, and the Tony Award-winning new musical Dear Evan Hansen.

TeleVision Productions include: the award-winning six-part BBC miniseries Wolf Hall directed by Peter Kosminsky starring Mark Rylance, Damian Lewis and Claire Foy, Richard Eyre's acclaimed adaptation of Ronald Harwood's The Dresser for the BBC starring Ian McKellen and Anthony Hopkins, Kenneth Lonergan's upcoming four-hour adaptation of EM Forster's Howards End for the BBC and Starz, Heidi Thomas's forthcoming adaptation of Little Women for the BBC and Masterpiece on PBS, and Richard Eyre's upcoming adaptation of King Lear starring Anthony Hopkins and Emma Thompson for BBC and Amazon Prime Video.

Callender began his career as stage manager at London's Royal Court Theatre working with David Hare and Sam Shepard. He won an Emmy for his work as producer of the television adaptation of the RSC's The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby for Channel 4, a Tony Award for Hedwig and the Angry Inch and a Golden Globe and a BAFTA award for Wolf Hall. As the long-time president of HBO Films, he was responsible for an unprecedented award- winning slate of movies and miniseries, including Mike Nichols' celebrated adaptation of Angels in America starring Al Pacino, Meryl Streep and Emma Thompson, and Gus Van Sant's Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or winner, Elephant. Callender is a Trustee of the New York Public Theater and the NYU Tisch School of the Arts. He received a knighthood in the Queen's 2016 New Year's Honours list for his services to British film, theatre and television in the US.

Harry Potter Theatrical Productions was founded by J.K. Rowling and Neil Blair in 2013 to develop and produce the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, the original new story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. The team from Harry Potter Theatrical Productions Ltd have worked closely with Sonia Friedman Productions and Colin Callender to produce the play, and also in controlling the international rights for the production.

Photo Credit: Manuel Harlan