You’ve no doubt heard about Team Starkid, the creators of a number of wildly successful YouTube musicals, propelled along by the rise to celebrity of alumni and Glee star Darren Criss. And you probably know the production that started it all: A Very Potter Musical. The group of University of Michigan actors, singers, and assorted creative types recently released the third and final chapter in their epic Harry Potter adaptation, and many consider it to be the last curtain call in an era of endings, beginning of course with the release of The Deathly Hallows book in 2007, and the final Warner Bros film in 2011. I first discovered the web-based musical series just days after its initial, uncensored release online in 2009, and let me tell you, I greeted it, as I would any Potter parody, with some serious side-eyeing. But by the time I’d marathoned my way through the entire three-hour running time, I was surprised to come to the conclusion that I had just witnessed some serious literary-adaptation genius.
A Very Potter Musical (2009)
- Harry: Well, the medallion says that’s dumb, so we’re not gonna do that.
The original musical was performed and recorded at the University of Michigan as a whirlwind, two week, just-for-fun project by some of the students in the theatre arts program. The writers, Brian Holden and brothers Matt and Nick Lang, took upon themselves the seemingly impossible task of adapting all seven Rowling books into one reasonably-paced stage musical – and they succeeded.
This first production still astounds me. The story takes us on a streamlined version of Harry’s journey, focusing on the events of the first, fourth, and seventh books: Professor Quirrel, the Triwizard Tournament, the Yule Ball, the graveyard return of Voldemort, the Horcruxes, Harry’s death and return from the dead and the final Battle of Hogwarts. It gives us Snape’s redemptive arc, Ron and Hermione’s burgeoning romance, Ginny’s crush on Harry and his on Cho Chang. Packed as each scene is with college humour and running jokes, the heart at the core of the story is ever present, particularly in the musical numbers, and the respect the Starkids have for Rowling’s beloved series is evident. This is not a parody that’s making fun of the original material. It’s one crafted with love.
A Very Potter Sequel (2010)
Lucius Malfoy: Yes I know. He marries Ginny. They live happily ever after. There is literally no way to move forward from this point.
As with any sequel, when the now fandom-famous Starkids announced the professionally-filmed second musical the following year, I was apprehensive. They’d already done the impossible and told us Rowling’s story. Harry saved the day. Voldemort was dead. What was left to do?
Their answer was to go back in time. Drawing heavily from the events of the third and fifth books, we Time-Turnered our way along with Lucius Malfoy to Harry’s first year at Hogwarts, before Voldemort’s return. The sequel gave us Umbridge, Sirius Black, and Harry’s quest for family and a place to belong, and allowed us to see what the original hadn’t: the development of the characters and relationships already established when we first met Harry and the crew. As the plot grew more convoluted and farther from the one we know and love, the themes of home and family in scenes like the one featuring the Mirror of Erised kept the link to the original material strong.
A Very Potter Senior Year (2012)
Harry: Take it easy, Hogwarts. It has been… totally awesome.
Most Starkid fans had given up on the possibility of a third Potter musical once its star, Darren Criss, hit the big time. But as we’ve observed, Team Starkid has the habit of making the impossible happen, and the entire expanded group gathered at LeakyCon 2012 to pull off what might be the greatest feat they’ve ever done: a one-time-only live performance for thousands, fully staged, costumed, and most actors off-book after only a few days of rehearsal. The final musical skips ahead to Harry’s seventh and final year at Hogwarts, using the events of the second and sixth books to frame a compelling story of growing up and what comes after the happily ever after – particularly timely and touching to Harry Potter fans still struggling to say goodbye to a series that shaped their childhood.
More Than the Sum of its Parts
In every sense of the word, these musicals shouldn’t work. They’re put together by a bunch of twenty-somethings in a slapdash, thrown-together way. They’re slapstick comedy, they’re pop culture references, they’re crude college humour, they’re all mixed up—they’re a lot of things Harry Potter isn’t. But they’ve got fantastic singers and actors that we’ve seen grow immensely in the five years we’ve known them. They’ve got sing-along-worthy music to rival any number of Broadway productions. They’ve got incredible handmade dragon puppets and a hero who plays his guitar with heart. And they’ve got a writing team that managed to capture the very essence of Harry Potter, and get it right.
The post Book to Screen: A Very Potter Adaptation appeared first on Paper Droids.