Acting alumnae Folami Williams '16 and Emily Murphy '17 are set to join the cast of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The Tony- and Olivier Award-winning play will begin performances at the Curran Theater in San Francisco on October 23. With record-breaking productions currently running in London and New York, as well as the February 2019 opening of the first Australian production in Melbourne, the San Francisco production will mark the fourth engagement of the smash hit play, as well as its West Coast premiere in North America.
The two-part play, written by Jack Thorne based on a story by Thorne, series creator J.K. Rowling, and director John Tiffany, premiered in the West End in 2016 before going on to play at Broadway's Lyric Theatre. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the most awarded production in the history of Britain’s Olivier Awards, winning a record-breaking nine awards including Best New Play and Best Director. The production has won 24 major theatre awards in the UK since opening in July 2016 in London. It made its Broadway premiere in April 2018, and is the most awarded show of the season, winning 25 awards in total, including six Tony Awards.
Williams' credits for theatre include: Off-Broadway: Julius Caesar, Othello (Classic Stage Company); The Maids (INTAR/One-Eighth Theater). Regional: Skeleton Crew (Portland Stage Company), Comedy of Errors (Shakespeare Theatre Company), Smart People (Kitchen Theatre Company). Other Credits include Blue Window (Columbia University), Romeo & Juliet, Twelfth Night (Manhattan Shakespeare Project), Auto de Fe (International WOW Company). Television includes: “Younger” (TV LAND), “Bull” (CBS), “She’s Gotta Have It” (Netflix; dir. Spike Lee). Williams received her BA from University of Virginia and her MFA from Columbia University.
Murphy's credits for theatre include: Comedy of Errors (Classic Stage Company), The Wolves (Theaterworks, CCC Award: Outstanding Ensemble), That Face (Baltimore Center Stage), Cleansed (Columbia University). She received her BA from McGill University and her MFA from Columbia University.
