‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’ on-stage family keep it fresh after a year-long run

Before each performance of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child,” Trish Lindstrom and Luke Kimball throw kisses to each other as they stand in the wings on opposite sides of the stage. Lindstrom plays Ginny Potter and Kimball plays her son, Albus.

And right before the show starts, Trevor White, who plays Harry Potter, gives his stage son Kimball a long hug.

These are some of the ways the actors playing the Potter family have kept their personal and stage relationships fresh and grounded in the 12-plus months they’ve been starring in the Canadian premiere production of “Cursed Child,” which closes on July 2.

In early June 2022, I interviewed the three actors about the experience of creating a stage family and they opened up about personal events in their lives. Lindstrom was still reeling from the sudden death of her mother the previous October and Kimball’s grandfather had passed away that April. White, already the father of a four-year-old daughter, had welcomed a baby son only two weeks before we spoke, making the taxing technical rehearsal period even more intense.

White, Lindstrom, Kimball and the rest of the “Cursed Child” company formed strong bonds as they waited out the COVID-19 pandemic in hopes that the planned production would go forward. As they rehearsed, White continued to step up to his role as the head of the company as well as the head of the Potter family, and the affection and respect between them when we spoke in 2022 was already very clear.

Checking in with them a year later, I found them proud, tired, still tightly bonded — and braced for the inevitable emotional fallout after the show closes. At the same time they remain focused on the job at hand for the remainder of the run, which is “to be here every day remembering that it’s somebody’s first time seeing the show,” said Lindstrom.

All three said they had not fully anticipated how challenging the marathon nature of this job would be: most Canadian theatre productions run for two to four weeks. Even long runs in repertory companies such as the Stratford Festival, where Lindstrom has worked, end after six months or so.

At three and a half hours, the show itself is also unusually long, meaning that on days when there are both matinees and evening performances, the actors are at the CAA Ed Mirvish Theatre for 12 hours at a stretch, with brief timeouts for naps and off-site meals.

They’re not complaining, far from it: “It’s such an anomaly in this country to get to be an actor that has a routine and a plan,” said Lindstrom. But at the same time, Lindstrom spends more time with White than with her own partner, and the two actors see each other more often in their stage wigs than they do with their natural hair. “It’s whacked,” said Lindstrom.

This is Kimball’s first professional stage acting job since graduating from theatre school, which has been exciting but disorienting. “It’s been a real lifesaver to have people that I can cling to and count on,” he said, referring to White and Lindstrom. “To have two parents in the show who I know have my back a hundred per cent on and offstage is just the best thing.”

For White, managing family life as well as the show has required time management so that he doesn’t arrive at work exhausted. “You wouldn’t want to do the thing that you love to do — athletics, theatre, brain surgery — tired,” he said. “I mean, I’m not likening myself to a brain surgeon, but you want to be the best that you can be.”

Lindstrom bought a house in Stratford a year ago and has still not spent more than 36 hours at a time in it. The length of the run and her distance from home is putting strains on her relationship: “When there is another person that’s on hold and my schedule that’s the priority, it creates an imbalance,” she said.

The production is so fast-moving and complex that the actors stay highly focused on their personal character tracks, with only a few opportunities during each performance for a backstage wave or quick chat. Novelty is welcome: “Trevor’s understudy Andy (Pogson) was on for a matinee recently, and then Trevor was back for the evening show and it felt like a new day,” said Lindstrom. “It’s like two-for-one pizza.”

When the show celebrated its first anniversary of performances on June 1, the actors learned that over half a million people had seen it and for half of those it was their first theatre show ever. “I think that’s really amazing,” said Kimball. “A lot of those will be kids, but not all. It’s families, probably people bringing their kids and saying, ‘OK, you’ve seen the movies or read the books. Now we’re going to all see the play.’”

“Sometimes it just catches me in my throat,” said Lindstrom. “It feels abstract at times that there are actual people out there watching us … It’s not a factory of something. It’s actually human connection that brings people back and brings us together.”

Lindstrom is glad that the show is ending during the summer so she can go to Stratford and dig in her garden.

White is returning with his family to London, England, where they were previously based — both he and his wife, actor Eleanor Matsuura, have TV work booked — and they plan to come back to Canada in the fall so their five-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Yoshimi, can continue in French immersion.

Kimball is going to do “the jobbing actor thing,” he said, auditioning for new roles and probably taking a serving job in the meantime.

Kimball said he can’t imagine not being in touch with his stage parents in the future and that he’ll follow their acting work avidly. “There’s no way I’ll miss anything that these two ever do,” he said. He and Lindstrom have created strong bonds with White’s family, particularly Yoshimi.

Lindstrom predicted they’ll fall out of touch for a couple of months as they readjust to post-Potter life and then “we’ll pick up right where we left off … it’s like family,” she said.

“I’ve always joked with Trish about friends for life,” said White. “Too bad, we’re friends for life. That’s how it is.”

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