Ketchikan High School was one of 29 schools chosen to perform a new, high school version of the Broadway play, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. The production will grace the Kayhi stage for the next two weekends (October 25, 26, November 1 and 2). Following a summer punctuated with school funding cuts and a fatal landslide, it’s a true embodiment of “the show must go on.”
Harry Potter and the Cursed Child follows Harry Potter’s son Albus and his friendship with Draco Malfoy’s son Scorpius in their first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. It’s based on an original story by J.K. Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany.
Jeffery Keilholtz works in marketing with Broadway Licensing Global, the organization that represents and facilitates Broadway plays throughout the world.
“Whether you’re a community theater, or you’re a professional theater around the globe, if you want to produce, say, The Crucible by Arthur Miller, there’s only one door to knock on on the planet, and that’s ours.”
He says the original London production of the Harry Potter play was performed in two acts that together ran almost six hours. Keilholtz describes it as an “all-day commitment.” The Broadway version was cut down to a little over 3 hours. Then, Keilholtz says the script was further pared down to create a version suitable for high schools.
In February, the organization announced the 29 winners of its “Wands at the Ready” contest. The chosen schools would be the first in their U.S. state or territory to perform the new edition. One of them was Ketchikan High School.
Keilholtz says the passion and teamwork of the school’s theater troupe, the Kayhi Drama Kings, stood out from other applications.
“And we were looking at their Facebook page and we thought, ‘This really great. This is a real corps of students here.’ And frankly we hadn’t seen that in a lot of other submissions and we thought that was really unique. And to see these kids and the admins put the video together we thought, ‘Alright. We’ve got to give them a shot.’”
I first spoke with drama teacher Tommy Varella-Kossack shortly after the school was announced as a winner. Since then, a lot has happened that impacted the entire community and left questions about the fate of the Kayhi theater program.
Varella-Kossack is a social studies teacher at the high school and was one of more than 50 educators given a pink slip at the end of the last school year. His contract as a teacher was eventually renewed, but did not include funding to pay him as a drama teacher. But Varella-Kossack says he and co-director Dani Pratt were determined to keep the drama program going.
“And at the end of the day, the more I thought about it, it was one of those things where the kids were so excited and worked so hard to get the program to where it was that we were going to do this show no matter what. We had to.”
The first day of school was set for August 26th. He says he and Pratt planned to do outreach and generate excitement for Harry Potter that first week, with auditions scheduled the following week. However, on the Sunday before the first day of school, a huge landslide came down in Ketchikan. It took the life of one person and destroyed several homes, including Varella-Kossack’s. School was delayed for a full week, and Varella-Kossack didn’t return to school for several days even after it reopened. He says Pratt took charge in his absence.
“We stayed on our timeline regardless of all of the factors that were actively working against us, and I’m so glad we did because these students have just every single day come into this rehearsal space excited, prepared, ready to work, ready to try new things, and create this incredible show.”
And despite all the setbacks, he says, “The show must go on.”
“We don’t let things stop us, because it is this community shared experience that I think does so much good. And I think in a time of low morale, I know myself, speaking for myself, needed to be a part of this. And I think the kids did too.”
Oliver Wutzke plays Harry Potter. He says it’s a bit of a challenge playing a character that so many people are familiar with from the books and movies.
“But even more than that, I can’t just portray the characters in those because this is set 19 years later. So it’s an older version (of Harry Potter). It’s different. And that would be a challenge I would say.”
Torran Urquhart is playing Scorpius Malfoy, a new character in the Harry Potter world. I asked him how it felt playing a character who’s new to fans of the Potter universe.
“I think it’s actually really cool because we get a lot more freedom with what we’re allowed to do with our characters since there isn’t an established thing we have to work upon so we get to make our own characters and I really like that aspect of it.”
Mason Avila, who plays Harry Potter’s son, Albus, agrees.
“Obviously this is a show that’s never really been done off of big performances. So these characters are really…not necessarily we’re free to do whatever we want to do with them, but we have a lot of options.”
The students had six weeks to put the show together which included rehearsing, set construction, mastering the special effects magic and costuming. Kayhi Drama Kings productions are self-funded through ticket revenue, community donations, and fundraisers. Harry Potter and the Cursed Child opens October 25 in the Kayhi Auditorium and runs two weekends.
Audition Video – https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTLDnHYvs/
Here is a link for tickets to the Kayhi Drama Kings’ Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
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The Kayhi Drama Kings have also been invited to attend the Fringe Festival, the world’s largest performance arts festival, in Edinburgh, Scotland in 2025. Varella-Kossack (vuh-RELL-uh CO-sack) says only 30 high schools throughout the United States are invited each year. He says a pre-selected troupe of 16 students, both actors and tech crew, will develop a show next year that will premiere in Ketchikan before taking it to the festival.
