PLYMOUTH, Minnesota — At Armstrong High School in Plymouth, it's time to fly. Students are currently busy preparing for their performances of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," which start later this month.
"I don't think it's really set in yet. It's just crazy to think about that because we're kind of making history here and I never expected that to happen to me in high school," said Miles Wahlstrom, assistant technical director and AHS senior.
In February, it was announced that the AHS Theater Department won a contest to be selected as one of 29 schools in the nation to stage the new high school edition. Schools interested in being granted the licensing had to submit why they believed their school would be the most magical place to debut the play.
While there were two pilot productions at high schools prior to this, these fall productions are the first official ones. AHS was the only school selected in Minnesota.
"It's a good bit of pressure," said Zack Leflar, a senior who plays Harry Potter. Wahlstrom added, "We have to get everything right."
The play takes place 19 years after the Battle of Hogwarts, following the friendship between Harry's son Albus and Scorpius — the son of Harry's rival, Draco Malfoy.
"It's a lot of just trying to figure out the characters because they're already so well established," Leflar said.
"It's exciting to be the first but it's scary," said Molly Kern, technical director and scenic designer.
Kern and Artistic Director Jenny Lovitt spent the summer having vision and design meetings. The pair flew to New York to watch the Broadway production of the show, which runs 3.5 hours long. The high school edition is about two hours. Broadway Licensing Global said it was intentional about adapting the play so high schools with all kinds of budgets would be able to pull it off.
"It's mostly trying to get the magic down without having a Broadway-level budget," Wahlstrom said. "We had to figure out how to put a pool on stage, a lot of walls that eat people... I mean, we're flying people. We're flying people in the show at Armstrong for the first time in many, many years."
"The challenges about this show is obviously it's the most technically demanding show we've ever done," Lovitt said. "Also, because of copyright issues, it's very strict about what we can and can't do."
That meant students had to conjure up new ideas for some of the most recognizable designs within the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.
"The kids did almost all of that work as far as redesigning or reimagining what this could be," Kern said. "I'm so proud of them. They just really did a wonderful job."
Armstrong's production involves a cast of 34 and more than 60 technicians — nearly double the typical amount on the tech crew.
When asked if it's brought in students who have never done theater before, Kern said, "Lots of them and groups of kids, you know, like cultural groups and friend groups that we haven't seen before that don't spend any time down in this art wing. So it's been really, really cool. It's been really exciting."
Lovitt said, "We've tried to build a program that prepares kids to go on, if they want to continue with theater. Whether it's from a technical standpoint or from a performing standpoint... we're teaching them to go beyond just theater. You know it's about communicating. It's about being able to assemble things. It's about thinking creative and taking something that is a spoken text and creating art with it."
Kern added, "I'm not going to say I don't care if they don't do theater. I hope they continue to enjoy theater and arts in their life, but I don't expect many of them to go on and do theater. It's more about the skill set of working in a team setting when when no one really has all the say. They have to work creatively together; they have to brainstorm together."
It's also an opportunity for other high schools, interested in staging their own production of "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child," to see how a high school pulls it off.
Kern said about herself and Lovitt, "We are absolutely both lifelong theater people, but we're educators first. This is like the dream... the best combination of those two things."
Opening night is Oct. 30. There are eight performances: Oct. 30 and 31, Nov. 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 and 9.