My return to “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” after three years away from the fandom.
By Lila Penenberg
I once wrote in a goodbye letter to “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” star Nicholas Podany that there's a stigma around being a fangirl. People think we’re crazy and obsessive, but we just want to bring joy to other people through gifts, art and positive reinforcement.
For the better part of two years, I was an extreme fan of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.” I saw the Broadway show a total of 15 times (discounted tickets, of course), brought art and gifts to the stage door, made friendships with other fans and formed relationships with cast members who even took me backstage.
I wasn’t obsessed — I was in love with the joy that it brought me and the joy I could bring the performers through a silly little drawing.
In March 2020, I was gearing up for the upcoming cast change and the departure of some of my favorite cast members when Broadway shut down, and the year two cast’s run was cut short. I wrote soppy Instagram captions and made video edits of my favorite moments from the stage door.
And then I went into quarantine and never saw the cast again.
When the show reopened with a new cast in November 2021, it transitioned from a two-part play to a one-part play to incentivize more people to come without having to buy two tickets and spend an entire day at the theater. When I saw the new show, I felt that it was merely an echo of the show that I had once loved. I’ve decided not to return.
On April 20, when “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” celebrated its five-year anniversary on Broadway, I found myself back at the show that had once been my happy place. I was pleasantly surprised with how much I enjoyed it, as the new cast put a lot of work into ironing out the issues that I originally had with the one-part version.
I found myself reverting into fangirl mode — not out of a yearning to see the new show again but a yearning for the old show and the old cast, despite trying to suppress my fangirl tendencies out of fear that others would think I was immature or crazy.
The very nature of shaming fangirls is sexist, as men are allowed to talk about sports as much as they please, but the second a woman shows any interest, she is deemed obsessive and crazy.
I remember the first time I was called obsessive for making fan art. A woman on Instagram told me that the cast thought I was silly and threw my art out, but I refused to believe her. Admitting that the cast did not feel joy from what I was bringing them would mean that our relationships were one-sided and invalidate all of the experiences that had meant so much to me.
When I returned, three years later, I saw my younger self as the silly, naive, obsessive fangirl that the woman said I was. I told myself that all of those times when cast members came to the stage door because I was there or added something to the show because they knew I would like it were lies.
Being an obsessive fangirl isn’t a bad thing. I truly just wanted to bring joy to the cast members and returning to the show years later helped me see that inclination as obsessiveness.
I still can’t help but wonder what it would be like if the two-part version of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” were on Broadway right now. If I could see the cast members again today, could I be a friend and not a fan?
And I think that I probably couldn’t because I simply am a fangirl — and there’s nothing wrong with that.