"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" at the Chicago's Nederlander Theatre
CHICAGO (CBS) — "Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" is on stage at the Nederlander Theatre in Chicago, and it has one of the city's best-known actors making a theatrical switch.
Bring your wands and get ready to swish and flick as the wizarding world "apparates," which means "appears before your very eyes" on stage. It's been 19 years since Harry, Hermione, and Ron saved the wizarding world, but new danger surfaces as their children set off to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Breathing life into the character Severus Snape is Chicago favorite Larry Yando. Taking on the role in the national tour meant saying goodbye to over 15 seasons at the Goodman Theatre as Ebenezer Scrooge in "A Christmas Carol," who was a big fan of the books.
"I was a huge fan of the Harry Potter books. I'm one of the people that waited at the bookstore for the next book to come out. I
was obsessive," Yando said, adding that he knows what the characters mean to the generation of fans who've followed them.
"I am very aware that even just appearing before a line is uttered, everyone will have a history with these people. And the play is so brilliant in that it doesn't try to recreate what we know already. They contradict nothing that's come before and only indicate a kind of future and a sort of fuller dimension to them," Yando said.
It will be the first holiday season in a decade and a half that Chicago won't see Yando as Ebenezer Scrooge, and he said it was a difficult decision to make.
"This all was unexpected and a surprise, but I'd be lying if I didn't say it was bittersweet. Because a large part of my heart is with that production of 'A Christmas Carol.' They're my family," Yando said.
"Harry Potter and the Cursed Child" plays at the Nederlander Theatre through February 1.