Transcript for MuggleCast Episode #294, The Cursed Child (SPOILER-FREE review)
Show Intro
[Show music plays]
Andrew Sims: This is MuggleCast, your Harry Potter and Fantastic Beasts podcast covering everything about J.K. Rowling’s Wizarding World. Welcome to MuggleCast Episode 294. This is our Cursed Child spoiler-free discussion.
Eric Scull: Wow.
Andrew: Eric, Micah, and I are here this week. Yeah, we finally made it. We crossed into a new world. [laughs] A world with eight Harry Potter stories.
Eric: Would you say it’s a whole new world?
Andrew: If I could sing, yes, I would say that. Now, we are doing two episodes tonight. Episode 294, this one, is our spoiler-free episode. Episode 295 will be our spoiler #Wormtaily episode.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah Tannenbaum: Well, it’s good you already have the title decided.
Andrew: Exactly.
Eric: Oh, gosh.
Micah: You’ve had a little help.
Andrew: I’ve been making lots of jokes over the past week to cope with J.K. Rowling throwing the gauntlet down on Hypable. [laughs]
Eric: Directly calling you out on your shiitake mushrooms.
Andrew: Yes, and one of my jokes has been, “Well, we definitely know what we’re calling an episode of MuggleCast sometime soon.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: It’s true enough.
Andrew: So we are going to talk about #Wormtaily today; we are going to talk about Cursed Child in a spoiler-free manner on this episode. But first, we wanted to take a moment to recognize the victims of the Orlando shooting that happened over the weekend. There were 49 victims, and at least one of them was a part of the Harry Potter fandom. His name was Luis. He was an employee at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter at Universal Orlando; he was a Gryffindor, and was described by friends and Universal visitors as a delightful person. The Forbidden Journey ride at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter was reportedly shut down on Sunday to pay tribute to him, and I understand that on Monday night they are doing a wands up tribute at Hogwarts Castle…
Eric: Yeah, in about half an hour from now.
Andrew: … which is really nice, yeah. And I wanted to say here that the Harry Potter fandom has always been an accepting community; we’ve all known this for so long, and we know that many LGBT people are part of this fandom, and we’re all extremely saddened by what happened, which makes it important to say that there are major issues regarding acceptance and guns in this country right now. This shooting was the worst mass shooting in American history. So I feel compelled to remind our American listeners that something needs to change, and we have two candidates on the ballot this November with very different ideas for how to take care of these issues, so all I’ll say is this: Choose your president and your senators wisely this election season, please.
Eric: That’s very well said. Yeah, just going into the news about it, it’s so very shocking, and seeing now that actually two of the victims worked at the Universal park. J.K. Rowling has been tweeted at and been tweeting her support, and just in general, her misery over this incident as well. It’s been very sweet, but a tragic but sweet day for coming together and recognizing just the big issue that continues to plague America.
Andrew: Absolutely.
Cursed Child review
Andrew: So we’ll shift gears now. We definitely wanted to mention that, but shifting gears, let’s move on to the Cursed Child. I had the opportunity to see it last week, both parts. It was very exciting.
Eric: Guess I didn’t realize that you actually got tickets for the first preview.
Andrew: Yes, the first one. The first one.
Micah: Go big or go home, Eric.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Exactly.
Eric: Well, I went home. But still, that’s pretty cool, I have to say.
Andrew: Yeah. Eric, you wanted to hear a little bit about my England trip, since we’re not getting into the gritty details.
Eric: I saw you went to Stonehenge, and that was always one of the places that I wanted to go, so talk about Stonehenge. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, well, it’s weird. I mean, it’s okay; it’s not that exciting of a place. But I feel like from the perspective of an American, you hear about it, and you’re like, “Oh, man, that’s so cool! I have to go there!” So I went with Richard, and it was fine. Yeah, it wasn’t too exciting.
Eric: [laughs] Just some rocks.
Andrew: Yeah, and then I went to a Bruce Springsteen concert…
Eric: Oh, that’s right.
Andrew: … which was a lot more exciting than Stonehenge.
Eric: Does he perform…? Okay, so let’s be real…
Micah: From rocks to rock and roll.
Andrew: [laughs] Some rocks and roll? Is that what you said?
Micah: No, I said from rocks to rock and roll.
Andrew: Oh. [laughs]
Eric: That was really cool.
Micah: It was a terrible joke.
Eric: What number was this for you, Andrew?
Andrew: Too many. Too many, Eric.
Eric: No, but really, if you had to… over a dozen?
Andrew: It was like 24 or 25.
Eric: Oh, gee. Wow, that is too many.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: That is actually… I would actually draw the line.
Micah: Where did he play? Did he play at Stonehenge?
Andrew: Yes. [laughs] No, he played the Palace Theatre. No, it was at Wembley, the new Wembley Stadium there. Yeah, but anyway, let’s get to the Cursed Child here, because… so I saw Springsteen on Sunday, and then Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Part 1 was Tuesday, and then Part 2 was Thursday, so it was like…
Eric: So compare… you had a day off from each of those.
Andrew: Yeah, I had a day to breathe. [laughs]
Eric: But compare the energy at the Bruce Springsteen concert at the new Wembley Stadium to the energy of the crowd leading into the first ever Cursed Child preview! I still can’t get over that.
Andrew: There was an insane amount of anticipation, just because nobody knew what to expect. The secrets have been so well kept. Hashtag #KeepTheSecrets.
Micah: Except by you.
Andrew: [laughs] No, leading up to the play, it’s been top secret.
Micah: Oh, I’m sorry.
Andrew: Yeah, it was palpable. I mean, they warned people to get there an hour early for security. There was a line literally around the entire Palace Theatre, and we thought it would take a while, but it actually moved very smoothly. So we were maybe waiting in line ten minutes, and the line moved nicely. And yeah, once you got in, it’s a beautiful theater. Very warm theater, by the way, so if you’re going to see it, wear shorts, because it is hot in there.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: And I’ve been told by somebody else, a theater regular in London, that it’s always that warm in there, so bring a personal fan or something.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: I had a little notebook with me to take notes, so I was fanning myself the whole show. [laughs] Anyway…
Micah: Were you wearing a suit? Were you dressed up for this?
Andrew: No, no. Night one, I wore a Hogwarts T-shirt with a button-down over top, opened.
Eric: Oh, nice.
Andrew: And then night two, I wore a Gryffindor shirt. Both from Target; very nice shirts.
Micah: Targé.
Andrew: Yeah, and then the audience was a lot of Harry Potter fans. There were a couple people in cloaks. A lot of Harry Potter shirts. It wasn’t like what you would expect to see at the theater. People dressed like Harry Potter fans would, is what I’m trying to say. And yeah, so I guess with that said, let’s get into our overall thoughts. Now, Micah and Eric have not seen the play, but they have read the spoilers. [laughs]
Eric: Yeah, we have.
Micah: Because you forced us to?
Andrew: No, I did not.
Eric: By not bringing us on? Oh, I get what Micah was going at. That was funny.
Andrew: Don’t drag me down.
Micah: One other question I did have for you, before we get into the actual play itself, was were there notable people – aside from yourself, of course – that were in attendance?
Andrew: [laughs] Stop.
Micah: The day you saw this. This was, as Eric mentioned, the premiere, at least the initial showing…
Eric: Well, first preview.
Micah: First preview of the Cursed Child, so I would expect that there would be some individuals in the audience that you would recognize.
Andrew: J.K. Rowling was there night two. I’m not sure about night one, though; I don’t know if she was there. I also saw a photo, actually, of Warwick Davis out front of the theater – I can’t remember if that was night one or night two – and I’m not sure if he was actually in it. But yeah, no, I’m not sure, because all the A-listers will come out for the grand opening on July 30.
Eric: Oh, right.
Micah: That’s fair.
Andrew: This is kind of a test, even though it didn’t feel like that. It was very well done overall. Actually, speaking of that, there were very little… there weren’t many issues. A couple people who I went with did notice there… they noticed that there may have been some moments where somebody forgot it was their turn to say the line, because the little gap was a little longer than you would have expected. There was also… [laughs] We’ll get to the owl in a second; I think a lot of people know that by now. But there was also a moment where they were taking a staircase off stage and it kind of went straight into the wall that was still on stage, so it was kind of just a big “BOOM” sound all of a sudden.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: And then there was the owl. Now, I tweeted about the owl. In Part 1, they have an owl come out, drop a letter, and it’s supposed to fly out into the audience for a split second and then land in one of the balconies where crew members are. So it did that, and we were all like, “Oh, that’s so cool. They have a real owl here!” And then something happened, which we still don’t know what exactly, if it was the owl’s fault or a crew member’s fault or what. But then the owl left its perch that it was on, flew across to the other side of the stage, the opposite side where there was another balcony, crew starts scrambling… I was up a little high so I could see all this happening. Crew starts scrambling, [laughs] they start flashing this red light to get the owl to come back, and that’s how I knew it was real by that point.
Eric: Oh, right.
Andrew: They start making these whistling noises and shit, and then it flies up into the rafters on the stage, and I could see it from my angle! And it was so distracting because they kept doing these [makes huffing noises] sounds, and they were flashing this red light… I was like, “Oh, man.” And as you may have seen, they decided that they are no longer going to use the owl.
Eric: The owl is fired.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I was going to say, they’ve cut the owl. That’s not cool.
Andrew: Which is probably for the best. I know somebody who went to the second preview performance…
Micah: And got crapped on?
Andrew: [laughs] No, no, the second Part 1 preview performance on Saturday, and they said it was a mechanical owl that time, and there was a sign that said, “There are no live owls in the production.”
Micah: Well, that kind of takes away some of the magic. But what was the intent? You may have mentioned this and I missed it.
Andrew: To drop… the owl was dropping a letter.
Eric: Yeah, and that might be a spoiler. Sorry if anybody feels a little queasy about that information.
Andrew: [laughs] I hope not.
Eric: I think it’s…
Micah: If anybody considers that a spoiler, Eric, don’t say it.
Eric: See, no… well, my personal line is not for that, but that’s getting into our #Wormtaily story. But my personal line is that’s fine. And it’s conceivable in a world where owls deliver post, that you have a play set in that world, and an owl is going to deliver something at some point. Okay?
Andrew: Exactly.
Eric: I don’t think that’s a stretch of the imagination. My mind is not utterly blown.
Micah: Well, I will say, J.K. Rowling better adopt that owl so it has a great life ahead of it, now that it’s been put out of a job.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Yeah, now that it’s… hashtag #AdoptTheOwl.
Micah: First she tried to put Andrew out of a job; now she’s trying to put this owl out of a job.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Oh my God.
Andrew: I did find it funny. Of course the first night this owl screws up. Did it have stage fright or something? Because obviously they went through a ton of rehearsals with this owl; they must have felt confident enough that this owl would be able to pull this off.
Eric: Selina wrote the article on Hypable about it, and I think one of the press statements or something said something about an audience… maybe she surmised that it was just the audience.
Andrew: Could’ve been.
Eric: Because I mean, the difference between an empty theater versus a packed theater could have probably scared it. So I think that’s probably… I wouldn’t blame the owl necessarily; I just think that it wasn’t necessarily practical to have the owl to begin with, and they’ve quickly seen and made that change. But that’s exactly what previews are for.
Andrew: Right, and that’s what they said. Yeah, it’s a test period for them.
Micah: Yeah, for owl testing, primarily.
Andrew: So here’s my TL;DR review of the Cursed Child.
Eric: Okay.
Micah: What’s that?
Andrew: “Too long; didn’t read.” That’s what that stands for.
Micah: Oh, okay.
Eric: But spoiler-free, still, all the same.
Andrew: Right, of course. The play, the visuals, what you see on stage, is fantastic. The acting is phenomenal. The choreography is phenomenal. The staging, the lighting, the effects, within the whole theater! It really takes over the theater in some points. It’s remarkable. I truly loved it. Everything is fantastic, except for the story! They screwed up the story. I tweeted this; it enters Breaking Dawn level absurdity at at least one point.
Eric: That’s what you tweeted; I read that. That’s crazy.
Andrew: And I wanted… I had this idea about it getting into Breaking Dawn territory early on, and as the play went on… the whole thing is five hours, when all is said and done.
Eric: Oh, Jesus.
Andrew: As it went on, I was like, “Okay, there’s going to be something that’s going to fix this. I’m not going to have to say this. I’m not going to have to say this.”
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: That second night leaving the play, you’re like, “I have to say it.”
Andrew: Yep, I was walking up the stairs, and I’m like, “I can’t… I can’t… it has to be said.” [laughs] Would you guys agree with that, knowing what you know?
Micah: Oh, absolutely. And I haven’t seen it, as you said, but I’ve obviously read the main plot points of the Cursed Child, and to me it just seems downright absurd, and I’m kind of surprised that J.K. Rowling would go in that direction.
Eric: And yet, you have a situation here where, ultimately, the casting is phenomenal. You have these adult actors who are working and now are going to be working for a very long time, bringing this story – lackluster or failed or misguided as it may be to certain people – to life for years and years and years, and Jo has since tweeted, “This will tour! You will get to see it. It will not be exclusive.” All of this news about this bright, bright future for a play which is excellent to see live – as you will attest to, Andrew – but ultimately something that hurts the happiness of someone who’s looking for a story that is different than the one that’s in this play, and that’s all I’ll say.
Micah: Right.
Andrew: Yeah, and again, I will emphasize you should definitely see this even after you read it and you don’t like it. I think one thing I forgot to mention was the magic! It feels like real magic happening on stage. You witness these things happening, and you’re like, “How did they do that?” I still think about these little moments in the play. I’m like, “How did they do that?”
Micah: And just… that’s what I was going to try and emphasize here, is despite the actual plot of the story, is it that you’re going to have an experience and to really get immersed into what you were talking about, Andrew? Or are you going…? And I guess it’s going to be different for different people. I think that there are going to be the casual theater goer who is going to see this and not really think all that much as it relates to the plot. Maybe they’re a casual Potter fan, but they’re going because they’ve heard all these great things that you’ve mentioned: the magic, the experience of being in the theater, all these things happening around you which don’t traditionally happen during a normal theater production, at least not to this level.
Eric: Oh, right. Probably stands out from those other productions for that reason, like you’re saying, yeah.
Micah: Of course. You’re going to get the fans who are the die hard Potterheads, and they’re going to be pretty insert-word with what has been created, and this is where it’s easy to sympathize with those who just want to stick to what is the canon of the seven books that have been written and not go beyond that, because from my understanding – and we’ll talk about it in the spoiler episode – this just goes completely off the rails. I mean, as fanfiction-esque as you could possibly want to get, you’ve got it. And to me, that’s a bit disappointing.
Eric: I just have to say, to its credit – and believe me, I was searching, not just for spoilers – but when Part 2 ended, searching for negative tweets about it, and they were actually, in the first six hours after that play letting out… granted, I know it was late at night, but negative tweets were actually hard to find.
Micah: I don’t think you have to be negative, though. I think you can be disappointed, and not necessarily be negative.
Eric: Well, I suppose what I was searching for… and I searched both hashtag #CursedChild and mentions of @HPPlayLDN, which is the official Twitter for it. I was looking for anything that wasn’t a rave review that was “Loved it, best thing I’ve ever seen.” And believe me, honestly, guys, there were plenty of those. So I was surprised, but it’s always a learning experience to me, going and seeing feedback like this which is positive, because something that is so clear to me that I would have issues with… and I would not be the person afterwards tweeting, “This was so amazing. It’s my favorite thing ever. You’ve done a great job. It was exactly what I was expecting, JKR. It was perfect.” These are things I would never tweet, but there are people who feel that way.
Andrew: And I enjoyed the play. I enjoyed being there.
Eric: So explain that.
Andrew: I just can’t… because I can’t… well, like I said, the staging, the choreography, the acting… it’s funny. The play is very funny. There are some emotional moments in this story. But I think it is seriously affected by the core story, and that is not going to change, because these twists… there’s two I’m thinking about in particular, the big one that we all are thinking about, and then another one to a lesser extent, which I’ll discuss in the spoiler episode. But yeah, it is an enjoyable experience. As for all the positive feedback, I do think it is deserved. I also think that if you are a die hard Harry Potter fan, and you were there on opening night, and you paid a good amount of money for these tickets, and you wanted to brag about being there, you’re probably going to leave a pretty positive review about what you saw, no matter how good or not good it was.
Eric: Sure.
Andrew: We have been getting a couple accusations on Hypable, to be fair, that in light of #Wormtaily, we’re purposely throwing the play under the bus. But we all did genuinely like it, and we wanted to have a Hypable person or two on, but just because of the time we were recording, we couldn’t make it work. They’ll be on at another time. But we all did have a great time. After the show, we all said that. We all enjoyed the magic, the acting, the choreography, the jokes, the fan service that they do. But these things, they just… [laughs] they just seriously affect it, and I can’t… and I worry that when you’re reading the script book, you’re not going to have all the positive things in this play.
Eric: I think that’s a concern.
Andrew: You’re only going to have this questionable story. And I mean, one other thing I would add is that today we did a couple polls on the MuggleCast Twitter account. We asked two questions. One of them was, “Have you read major Cursed Child spoilers? If so, how would you grade the story as you interpreted it?” Now, in fairness, this shouldn’t be a solid… this isn’t a rock solid answer to how people are receiving the story, because they haven’t read the actual script. But 16% said great, 30% said good, 30% said bad, 24% said terrible. They thought the Cursed Child was one of those four things.
Eric: So is that more than half on the bad and terrible side?
Andrew: Yeah, by 4%.
Eric: By 4%, okay.
Andrew: So the fandom, if you’re asking just these 201 readers of the spoilers, were not impressed by this.
Eric: You ran another poll, actually, which had over 1,000 votes. The one that we just read from had 200 votes, but the one with 1,000 votes on MuggleCast asked… hang on.
Andrew: “Have you purposely read Cursed Child spoilers?” 30% said, “Yep, most things,” 18% said, “Just minor things,” and then 52% said, “Nope, avoiding it all.” So in other words, half read at least a spoiler or two, while the other half is avoiding it all. And that’s fine. I mean, you should… we’ll talk about this in a little bit, but it’s up to you what you want to do. But I thought it was interesting.
Micah: Unless you do a podcast, then you have to.
Andrew: You have to do… [laughs] you guys chose to.
Eric: That’s true; we did choose. We were not forced. I went actively seeking, and…
Micah: Maybe you all banded together and decided to come up with the biggest crackpot theories out there and mesh them all together, put ’em out on the Internet.
Eric: Oh, we can only hope.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Micah: No, I think something that you said, Andrew, is very important, is that you have to be able to see this all within the context of the actual show. It can’t just be you’re looking at the plot by itself and determining that it’s going to be absolutely the worst thing that you’ve ever seen in your life. I think that you can certainly take a little bit of an issue with some of the things – and we’ll touch on them – that have been written and the way that they’ve been written, but look, this is what’s been created, and from everything that you said, it’s very encouraging, right? You should want to go see this, and you should want to experience it for all the reasons that you’ve listed. And so while I can sit here, I have really no context to be able to say other than what I read, and that’s not a great perspective to have. You need to experience it in its true form, and then I should be able to come back and say, “Okay, that was the greatest thing I’ve ever seen,” or, “You know what? It was okay,” or, “That was horrible. I never want to see it again.”
Eric: Right. Well, and there were a couple other positive things you had to say about the play, Andrew, specifically the merchandise.
Andrew: Yeah. Well, let me add one more point to that, which is that that’s why I wish so bad that this was being filmed on stage and broadcast live on July 31 in movie theaters, instead of the script book being published, because I think people will have a much more positive view of this thing if they’re actually seeing all this magic happening on stage, as opposed to reading about it. It remains to be seen just how detailed this script book is going to get.
Eric: With stage directions, yeah.
Andrew: Right. I mean, is it going to describe the magic that was happening on stage? I kind of doubt it. It might lightly get into details, but you just have to see it. Then again, on the other hand, if they were to have broadcast it in a movie theater, that probably would have seriously affected ticket sales for the Palace Theatre. So this was just a tough situation all around. I mean, frankly, the only good solution would have been to not do it at all, to not do the play at all. [laughs] Because it’s like, on one hand, okay, script book is good because you’re getting the story out there, but people aren’t going to see the good parts of it.
Eric: Yeah, the redeeming… yeah, so if the script book is flawed, you’re like, “Oh, well, you’ve taken out all these elements that are basically essential to the majority of people appreciating the play.”
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Or they’re just crucial in any play. When you see a production, it’s well different than just reading the script for that production. Anything, anything drama, anything theater. So I can see how, in this point, it would be particularly problematic to have the script book published. And I think that you’re right, having a filmed version would make it a lot clearer, the story’s redeeming qualities, or just in general what the play is…
Micah: I don’t know about that, though, because if you’re watching it in the movie theater, you don’t get the same sort of impact as being in the actual theater where it’s being performed.
Eric: Well, there’s a comment I wanted to reference from one of our patrons. Ashley Crakes, or Ashley Upchurch Crakes, says, “I think it was last fall, but at some point, JKR said, ‘I’m confident that when audiences see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, they will understand why we chose to tell this story in this way.'” And her question is, “Now do you understand why she made this one a play?”
Andrew: Yes. And this is a great point; I wanted to bring this up as well. J.K. Rowling… this whole time, she made this comment; she made the “It’s not a prequel” comment. We really have to take her words seriously when she says all this stuff. [laughs] When we heard this comment about “People will understand why we chose to tell this as a play,” I completely understand why she said that now, but still, the story could have been improved.
Eric: Okay. Yeah, I forgot all about that “Is it a prequel?” controversy. I love being reminded of that.
Andrew: Yeah, we didn’t believe her. And with this comment, too, a lot of people didn’t believe her either, because it was like, “Really?” But I will say: Here’s actually one thing that surprised me, getting back to this comment. When she said this, that we’ll understand why it had to be a play, I thought it was going to be simpler than it ended up being. I didn’t think there were going to be as many effects. I thought it was going to be a more straightforward stage play…
Eric: Right.
Andrew: … like you just see people and that’s it, not much background stuff happening. [laughs] It’s really a visual treat, which I was not expecting, so my expectations were greatly surpassed on that point, and I applaud them heavily for that, because when you see this thing, you will be very impressed.
Eric: That’s good to know.
Andrew: So I will say that two of the standout characters are Scorpius and Hermione. Scorpius is the son of Draco. He really… the way the actor plays him, he just really… the character is just awesome, and I won’t say any more than that. [laughs]
Eric: No, but we have talked previously about that character in the last episode, because we had the stills released.
Andrew: Hermione was also very good.
Eric: Ooh, good to know.
Andrew: It’s funny, when you watch her now – when you watch Noma, I believe her name is – you don’t even think about the color of her skin. The first time she came on stage, I was like, “I can’t believe that controversy happened.” That was so stupid in hindsight.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Because within one line, you’re like, “There’s Hermione. Where’s she been these years?”
Andrew: Right, right! And the whole time, I was thinking, “Thank God they chose her,” because she really is wonderful, and it was a total treat to see her on stage.
Eric: That’s good to know.
Andrew: You mentioned the merchandise a couple minutes ago.
Eric: Yeah, yeah.
Andrew: So merchandise… once you walk into the Palace Theatre, it’s right there in front of you. So I walk in and I buy a T-shirt that says Harry Potter and the Cursed Child. There’s also a pin set, a lanyard, there’s an owl… [laughs]
Eric: Not anymore.
Andrew: [laughs] I should’ve bought one.
Micah: Well, now he’s trying to sell some merchandise so he has an actual source of income.
Andrew: Career, yeah. I should have bought one after that mishap, just to remember it. But yeah, and then there’s pencils, and there’s a keychain… oh, and then there’s the program. And I was like, “Okay, cool. Sounds good.” So I leave…
Micah: You bought all of it?
Eric: “We’ll take the lot!” [laughs]
Andrew: No, no, I bought a T-shirt and program. And I’m just leaving a note here so I don’t forget… so then I walk in for Part 2, and I look up at the merchandise booth, and there’s new merchandise…
Eric: Ahh.
Andrew: … with something on the shirts – and the pin set and the lanyard, I believe – that happened at the end of Part 1. [laughs]
Eric: Okay, that’s cool.
Andrew: It was cool. That was well thought out. And I bought a second shirt, of course. How could I resist?
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So now I have two Cursed Child shirts, and apparently I can’t wear the second one because #KeepTheSecrets.
Eric: I was going to say, you’re going to have to wait till Harry’s birthday for that one.
Andrew: Exactly.
Eric: Considering the unique format of having not just… it’s not a two-act play; it’s a two-part play, two parts on two different evenings. They have the opportunity to do something like this, which I think is genuinely cool. Sometimes we scoff at the theme park, or any kind of… when Harry Potter is over merchandised, but I just think it’s cool that it changed. That’s a cool idea that exists only because they have a play that is essentially one play on two different nights. Yeah, I think it’s a great idea. I think it’s really cool.
Andrew: Yeah, it was a nice surprise. I was pleasantly surprised. And then when you left each part of the play, they were handing out #KeepTheSecrets buttons that J.K. Rowling had tweeted one a day or two before Part 1 opened.
Micah: Which you clearly obeyed.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: You guys, do you remember that video…? I think we talked about… if it wasn’t the last MuggleCast, it was one right before. But there was only a one-minute video, and it was Jack Thorne, John Tiffany, and J.K. Rowling, and they were like, “Oh, we’re really excited; it’s about a month out till previews,” and it was kind of a video about nothing, until J.K. Rowling turned to the camera and smiled and said, “Keep the secrets, by the way.”
Andrew: Yeah, yeah.
Eric: Hashtag #KeepTheSecrets. And this was something… it was an entire Twitter campaign, but to me, it started really late. It started like… we heard nothing about this play for the longest time, then all of a sudden, #KeepTheSecrets, and now they…
Micah: Clearly, Andrew didn’t get the memo.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, they’ve continued that into the actual theater. And Andrew, was there ever an announcement about it?
Andrew: No.
Eric: I know you said there was buttons.
Andrew: Yeah, so when you were exiting, they were handing out these little – they’re small, they’re small – #KeepTheSecrets buttons. And it was kind of funny; the first night I exited, and for whatever reason that night, I only passed one person handing out the… because I took a different door the first night. And I was like, “Oh, can I take a couple?” And they were like, “Sure.” So I put my hand in there, grabbed a couple buttons. And then the second night, they were handing out #KeepTheSecrets buttons, and you know how the logo has wings on it? A pair of wings? So I don’t know why the heck they decided to do this, but for Part 1, you get the left wing, and then for Part 2, you get the right wing. So they’re two different buttons. They say the same exact thing, but they’re technically two different buttons.
Eric: They’re the wings of the Snitch that has the nest for the center that the Cursed Child – or rather, so we think – is in.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Okay. In the logo.
Andrew: Right, exactly. And so the second night, I took a different route out of the theater, and I went down three floors, and so on my floor I passed the button person; I’m like, “Oh, can I take a couple?” Like, “No, sorry, you can only take one.” I was like, “Ah, bummer.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: So I grab one. I walk down the stairs; there’s another person handing out buttons.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Andrew: So I get a second one. I go down the stairs again; there’s another person handing out buttons! [laughs] I take a third one. So I ended up getting three that night, even though they only wanted to give me one. Ha! And each time…
Eric: You know you’re never being allowed back into that theater, Andrew. [laughs]
Andrew: I know. Permanently banned.
Micah: No, you need to have that owl do recon for you and just go and get them out of the basket.
Andrew: [laughs] And each time I went down a floor, down a flight, I was like, “Can I have more than one button?” And they’re like, “No, no.” So I guess after the first night, they decided, “Okay, we can’t let people have a couple each. That’s crazy.”
Eric: Right, right.
#Wormtaily
Eric: Okay, so this campaign, Andrew, hashtag #KeepTheSecrets. What were your thoughts going…? Did you know going in that this was something that you essentially…?
Andrew: That I wouldn’t do? [laughs]
Eric: Well, that you’re… I mean, Hypable took, I think, a unique position on the whole matter, which it was separate from… following Part 1, there were spoilers being posted; Tumblr, Reddit, plot summaries, all this kind of thing. And unlike that, Hypable… you stated very clearly in your first article that, “Jo’s wishes are to hashtag #KeepTheSecrets. We’re not exactly going to do that completely.” I think that was… I’m paraphrasing, but that was what you said. And so you decided, and Hypable published – I think it was supposed to be three, but at first it was two – tidbits, which is what…
Andrew: Yes.
Eric: I think it’s fair to call them tidbits. But somebody else that we know and love thinks that they’re… calls them spoilers.
Micah: Used to.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But for me, the big difference is that… we’ll get into the politics of it later, but I think that what you posted genuinely would make someone excited to see the show.
Andrew: Yeah, so here’s the thing: We did not spoil it in the headlines. Do you think it’s okay if I read the headlines?
Eric: Yeah. Oh, please do. That’s why I put that.
Andrew: Okay, so we did two initially right after the play. First one: “Here are the Hogwarts Houses Albus, Scorpius, and Rose join in the Cursed Child.” Now, we wrote this because we knew that these three characters were going to be in the play. Obviously, they were going to be at Hogwarts. So you know they’re going to have Hogwarts Houses; we’re not spoiling anything if you’re just looking at that headline. If you click the article, yes, you will find out which Houses they’re in.
Eric: But that’s still after several paragraphs. Again, you say, “Jo’s wishes are for this. We are not exactly, but here’s this and that…”
Andrew: Yeah!
Eric: Okay.
Andrew: And the reason we wanted to do that… because obviously there’s going to be demand for this. People want to read… there are a group of Harry Potter fans – as the poll that we did on Twitter earlier today showed – who want to see the spoilers. They don’t want to wait another month and a half knowing that the play is already happening, and we want to offer that to them. And so then the second headline was, “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child reveals something delightfully new about Hermione.” We purposely made that one very, very broad. I was gunning to go a little…
Micah: It’s extremely vague.
Andrew: Yeah, I wanted to go a little more specific, but Selina insisted on this, and I’m glad we did in hindsight, kept it this way.
Eric: Right, right. I mean, really, the only leading thing in that title is “delightfully.”
Andrew: [laughs] It means you’ll like it.
Eric: Like, “Oh! This tidbit won’t suck!”
Andrew: Yeah, exactly. Right.
Eric: Which I don’t think that’s unfair to state. [laughs] But again, it’s bringing, I think, good feelings and good thoughts towards the play that you guys have just seen.
Andrew: Yeah, it’s positive coverage. So we publish these; we go to bed. I was staying with Hypable cofounder Richard Reid. I wake up to Richard going, “Oh no!” [laughs] And I’m just waking up. I’m like, “What? What?” He’s like, “Oh no.” I’m like, “What?” And he’s like, “J.K. Rowling tweeted about us,” and then he read me the tweet. And I was initially, of course, in shock. Like, “What? That’s crazy.” I didn’t believe him at first; I thought he was messing with me. And then I was scared, because I thought most people were going to side with her on this matter. And her tweet was…
Eric: Well, it’s important to read the first one.
Andrew: Oh, yeah. So earlier in the morning, before she tweeted about Hypable, she said… do you have it in front of you?
Eric: Yeah. “So, reaction to the first preview was… wonderful. Feedback is fans really do want to #KeepTheSecrets for each other’s sake. #DontBeWormtail.” I assume she’s referring to the fact that Wormtail was the Secret Keeper and ruined the lives of Lily and James Potter and Harry, because…
Andrew: [laughs] I think that’s right.
Eric: So like, “Don’t be Wormtail.” That makes sense to me when she said it. Okay, fine, it’s cute.
Andrew: So she tweeted that at 10:30 a.m. London time, and then an hour later, she tweets the following: “If you don’t want #CursedChild spoilers, avoid Hypable. #Wormtaily.” [laughs] So this was the tweet that was read to me as I’m waking up, and I’m like, “What the F.”
Micah: How’s your site traffic?
Andrew: [laughs] Right, this is just so bizarre on so many levels. First of all, why did J.K. Rowling decide to call us out? Because spoilers were elsewhere; full plot spoilers by that point were already on Tumblr and Reddit and other places.
Eric: And at that time, the only posts that Hypable had made were the two we just talked about.
Andrew: Right. Second of all, we were like, “Does J.K. Rowling read Hypable?” I genuinely don’t think that’s the case, so that one was kind of out the door. Then we were like, “Okay, so maybe somebody just notified her, and she just happened to… she decided just to call us out.” Maybe it was a warning sign to other outlets; like, “I’ll call you out if you spoil.” So we still don’t know exactly what happened. I also have a theory that she was subtly telling people to actually look at our two reports and not elsewhere, so she was kind of saying…
Eric: Funneling?
Andrew: Right, right, because the stuff that we wrote was not very spoiler-ish in the grand scheme of things, so maybe if you wanted to see some smaller spoilers… and by the way, she tagged Hypable. Why the hell is she tagging Hypable in the tweet if she doesn’t want people to look?
Micah: Right. Well, that was my initial reaction, and when I saw it, I said, “Well, what better way to send people to your website than to call attention to the fact that you have this content on your website?” I mean, it’s almost like you’re saying, “Here’s what I don’t want you to look at, but look at it.”
Andrew: “Look at it,” yeah.
Micah: And it’s just for somebody who is as brilliant of a mind as J.K. Rowling… I agree, I think there’s something that’s a little bit more underlying here that maybe we don’t know, because to call you out specifically, like you’re saying, when there’s all these other outlets…
Eric: And no one else.
Micah: And nobody else.
Eric: Has she to this date called anyone else out for being Wormtaily and posting spoilers?
Andrew: No! No.
Eric: And that’s weird.
Andrew: Sites like The Daily Beast were there and wrote up a full summary… not even a summary, a full breakdown of the story.
Eric: And published it.
Andrew: They didn’t copy and paste it from Tumblr, they… right, they were there and wrote it themselves and published it. So like I said, I was initially scared, but I have to say, a lot of people were supporting us, which I really, really appreciated, because people could have turned against us and sided with her, and that would have totally sucked.
Eric: I can’t imagine waking up the morning after you saw Part 1, too, and having all these concerns, like, “Will we even be let into Part 2?”
Andrew: Yeah, that definitely crossed my mind as well.
Micah: No, they can’t revoke your ticket.
Eric: Look, I mean…
Micah: Freedom of speech.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: Not in that country.
Andrew: [laughs] Well, it’s pretty close.
Micah: Come on.
Andrew: And that would have been awful publicity, if they didn’t let us in.
Micah: You know what I just thought about, though? In terms of… it’s kind of in line with what you were saying, Andrew, is maybe she knows that Hypable is a destination for people who want Harry Potter news, and just wanted to deter people from going to one of the primary destinations to potentially get spoiled. I mean, that would be my only thought process in calling out a specific outlet like yours. You have tons of media outlets that you could target, tons of social media platforms, people who may have tweeted or posted – you mentioned Reddit and Tumblr – and so many outlets that are out there. To call attention specifically to yours, there’s more to it than meets the eye.
Eric: And if she’s throwing shade, if she’s throwing shame – which is what it looks like at surface – it’s like, why is it just to you? And especially because – we’ve said this before – the spoilers that you were posting are fairly innocuous. They’re not big plot reveals. And it’s not just that you can find bigger plot reveals out there, but before Jo tweeted that… when I first saw that Hypable posted spoilers, I posted my thoughts on those spoilers, which was, “I appreciate that Hypable is carefully curating; they’re choosing what to say…” I tweeted this. I was like, “Hey, they’re choosing it, and it doesn’t seem like to be these major things.” And I can appreciate that, because me, I will never see this show, or I don’t have any plans or tickets to see this show, and I am in the group of Harry Potter fans that want to know not just the little things, but everything about this. So for Hypable to be posting tidbits that make me more excited, I think that satiates my interest in waiting for the book to come out.
Andrew: Right, it only helps, yeah. And yeah, I appreciated that tweet when you sent it out before the J.K. Rowling thing. And Micah, I think you’re right, too; one of our writers had this theory as well that J.K. Rowling actually has been aware of Hypable and sees it as a fandom destination, which I think is fantastic if that’s true. And maybe she was surprised that we as a fandom destination would go against the wishes of the author.
Eric: Of the queen.
Andrew: Yeah, of the queen, right.
Micah: But you didn’t really… I mean, in my mind, you didn’t really go against the wishes in the sense that you were very clear in what you posted, the headlines were vague enough they didn’t reveal specific information, and even in the articles themselves, you called attention to the fact that the author didn’t want there to be these spoilers revealed, so if you didn’t want this information, you didn’t have to read any further. And this just goes to a larger conversation that we could spend hours talking about in terms of spoilers, right? I mean, if you don’t want to get spoiled on something in this day and age, there’s many ways that you can protect yourself against it. Now, of course, you could be scrolling through a Twitter feed or on Facebook and see something and…
Eric: You can’t unsee.
Micah: It happens; that’s the reality of the world we live in. But I think the way you went about it, the way that you presented it, was such that you have to make a concerted effort in order to spoil yourself on Hypable.
Andrew: Yep, exactly.
Micah: And that, to me, doesn’t deserve any sort of slap on the wrist. That doesn’t deserve any comments from other outlets, from other people who may have chosen to speak up,to look good in the eyes of other individuals.
[Andrew laughs]
Micah: I just think that if you were going to do it, you did it the right way.
Andrew: Well, thank you.
Eric: And it’s weird that Hypable is the only one. That just, to me, is weird. She didn’t turn it into Club Wormtaily…
Andrew: Right.
Eric: … where she can be like, “And in Wormtaily Weekly, here are the next five people who are on my shit list.”
Andrew: Yeah. [laughs] Wormtaily Weekly.
Eric: It was not at all about that. To be honest, she couldn’t do that these days because Wormtaily.com, I hear, is taken. [laughs]
Andrew: Yeah, so that was… we’ve been having a lot of fun with this…
Micah: Did you buy it?
Andrew: I bought Wormtaily.com; it redirects to Hypable.
[Micah laughs]
Andrew: I even masked the title, so if you type in Wormtaily.com in your tab on your browser, it’ll say, “Wormtaily.com: Your number one source for Cursed Child spoilers.” [laughs]
Eric: It’s a pretty cool trick, and it’s a way to make light of what could be this terrible situation.
Andrew: Right.
Eric: You don’t know if Jo hates you, right? I mean, it could be disastrous, but also it could be… maybe she really thought… and I think it makes a lot… maybe she thought that what Hypable was doing was the right way to do what she didn’t want to happen, but understanding fully, as she must, with 7.4 million followers, that fully half of those people want the information that is being withheld from them.
Andrew: Yeah. And you know what, by the way? She tweeted this very early UK time, so people in America didn’t even see it. I had to tell my West Coast friends what had happened that morning, because 10:30, that’s 2:00 a.m. West Coast time, 5:00 a.m. East Coast time. Nobody’s up then. And tweets don’t… nobody sees tweets from a long time ago. So it definitely blew up – trust me, it blew up – but a lot of Americans didn’t even see it. But Micah and Eric, I would like to apologize in advance if this means for absolutely sure that we are never interviewing J.K. Rowling on this show.
Eric: People keep saying that. [laughs]
Andrew: I take full responsibility for this matter. But I made my peace with that already. [laughs] That’s why I tweet her.
Micah: Well, I’d like to think that she can put that aside. I don’t think you did too much damage in that respect.
Eric: We just can’t have Andrew on.
[Everyone laughs]
Andrew: Right. J.K. Rowling, I will not be on if you agree to do an interview with us. We will leave it up to Micah and Eric, and we will never speak of a Cursed Child spoiler on this show again.
Micah: Just like when we spoke with David Heyman.
Andrew: What? What was the…?
Micah: Right? It was Eric and myself.
Andrew: Oh, yeah.
Eric: You made that disparaging remark a couple episodes prior about David Heyman’s mother, and we couldn’t have you on the interview.
Andrew: Oh, stop.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: That is not true, for anyone who doesn’t…
Eric: It was fake. It was fake.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: You just happened to not be available or whatever. I think it was a really difficult time, or you were seeing Bruce Springsteen for the only 17th time or something like that. I don’t even remember.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: But yeah, this was just an interesting situation, okay? And surrounding this entire crazy last week… which we’re doing two episodes about tonight; I mean, this has only been the first of two episodes we’re going to do about this crazy past week that we’ve all had. Even us, Micah and me from across the pond, not seeing the play, it was just the craziest series of circumstances. And really, if you’re talking about fandom being alive, the reactions and the high emotions that were running from every corner of the web and the net as we see it, this was truly something, I think, not even just a resurgence of what we used to have, but I think something completely new and unique and scary and concerning. And just the emotions that I have felt connected with Harry Potter in this past week are at a peak from months and months and months, years of gradual decline, and this is something that we should both, I think, just commemorate by calling it out, but also notice that people really care about Harry again, and it’s really causing a lot of stirs.
Andrew: Yeah. This play will definitely get people talking. Whether it’s for better or for worse, people will be talking about this play, and I’ll be very interested to see what J.K. Rowling says in the weeks following the publication of the script book. I wonder if she’ll answer questions about the story, because there are definitely some questions we’re going to have about how this story works.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Maybe she’ll invite Hypable to her house for an interview.
Andrew: Yes. Jo, let’s clear the air. Let’s have some afternoon tea. I learned about afternoon tea on my recent London trip.
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Let’s clear the air. Let’s all go over to your place for some tea. We’ll bring some tea; you just supply the kettle, and we’ll talk this through. We’ll figure this out together. [laughs]
Eric: Ultimately… and that’s really the thing about this too, which I’ll add, is that Jo has always seemed to be a person you can level with, a person you can really ask even about those dark corners of the Harry Potter books where you’re like, “I don’t really… I kind of want to know. It’s a guilty pleasure, but I really want to know this question.” She’s totally gracious and will answer when she can, if it’s not at risk of going against previous statements that she’s made or spoiling people that she doesn’t want to spoil. She’s been genuinely someone that has been great to her fans, has been great to the audience, has been great to literally anyone who approaches her, and it was actually just shocking to see her go from zero to 100 on that one issue, to a site that, in my mind, was essentially protecting the public from many worse things that they could have read.
Andrew: And to play devil’s advocate, there were people who sided with J.K. Rowling, and that’s fine. I am not going to sit here and tell everybody how to manage spoilers. That’s always been an issue on the Internet; there’s no clear answer about managing spoilers. We think we did it… we did it in a way we are comfortable with, knowing nobody was going to be unintentionally spoiled, and that’s fine. You can take J.K. Rowling’s side; I’m completely cool with that, and I don’t want to sit here and be like, “J.K. Rowling is wrong, and everybody who agrees with her is wrong.” I had never been more sick of Twitter by the end of that day. I was reading tons of great support, but I was also duking it out with some people on Twitter who were… I didn’t want to tell people they were wrong, but I was just trying to explain our situation, we did what we did.
Eric: And that’s hard as hell to do in 140 characters.
Micah: Yeah. Well, I mean, in those situations, you just have to put your thoughts out there and let them sit out there, and people are going to respond the way that they’re going to respond, and you can’t make everybody happy.
Andrew: Right.
Micah: But I agree with what Eric said in terms of leveling. I bet if you were able to respond directly to her, however you would go about doing that, and explain yourself…
Eric: In a much different forum.
Micah: … I’m sure that she would be accepting of it and maybe not totally agree with your approach, but I think that you could find, as you said, some common ground.
Andrew: Yeah. But for now, I am on a hiatus from tweeting J.K. Rowling, and I believe it’s best that at this time we don’t talk. It’s complicated with J.K. Rowling right now.
[Eric laughs]
Micah: Till the day you make her blush again.
Andrew: Till the day I make her blush again, yeah. [laughs]
Eric: Man.
Andrew: I used to enjoy it; I just don’t feel comfortable at this time tweeting her anymore. I tweet her a lot of fun stuff, all the… well, I used to. That was the old me. The new me is going to lay off.
Micah: You guys broke up.
Andrew: Yep. [laughs]
Eric: We get it, dude. Look, this is… it’s just weird. It’s a weird and exciting time. And honestly, if you’re still listening to us, if the first 25 minutes of this podcast didn’t turn you off because we were being so negative… I have to say that I think we’re all pursuing the same thing as fellow Harry Potter fans, which is a way to continue to celebrate our story and have new stories that meet our wildest expectations be told and shared with a group of like-minded people who have come so far together and love each other. And I honestly think the message is very positive, just like the message of the Harry Potter books. This is something that, while this happened – and I think all three of us unanimously don’t quite agree with a lot of what was just produced on London’s West End – what we can say about it, I think definitively, is that it is still a part of us that we’re… and it’s a part of the world that we’re proud exists. Because ultimately, the message of Harry Potter, the message is the many intents… we know that this was not maliciously produced. It’s all good, and the people who are working their heart off acting and performing in this play, and wrangling owls… which, I guess the wranglers might not have jobs now. We’re all kind of just experiencing this thing for the first time, and it’s ultimately not something that is comparable to anything else that has ever happened, so we recognize how special this moment is.
Micah: Those people are now operating remote controls instead of wrangling the owl.
Eric: [laughs] They had dual IT degrees, yeah.
Micah: And I would just add: One more thing is that in this particular case, we tend to agree with Andrew, but if we didn’t agree with him, we certainly would tell him, and we certainly would be, I think, just as vocal. So for those of you out here who are listening to the show and saying, “Oh, well, they’re Andrew’s friends, of course. They’ve been podcasting with him for ten years. They’re going to side with him.” I don’t necessarily think that that’s the case. I mean, I think this is just a situation where we agree with his position, and we agree with what he did, and don’t necessarily agree with the response, but I think we’ve always been good about showing different perspectives, and so I just felt that it was important to say that.
Eric: We haven’t been coerced, by Jo or by Andrew.
Andrew: Yes. I want to give a couple of shout-outs to, first of all, Nolan, who I sold an extra Cursed Child ticket to. I had found him through Twitter and turns out he was MuggleCast listener, so I…
Micah: You’re doing shit on the black market now?
Andrew: [laughs] Oh, man. I had a couple of people with me who were like, “You’ve got to sell that ticket for double or triple the price.”
[Eric laughs]
Andrew: Because it was obviously a very hard ticket to get. But I said, “If I’m going to go out on my Twitter account and offer this ticket to people, I’m not going to rip off somebody, because chances are it’s going to be a MuggleCast listener.”
Micah: Well, now J.K. Rowling is going to know about that too.
[Andrew laughs]
Eric: Well, no, that would be Wormtaily.
Andrew: That would be Wormtaily.
Eric: Or Mundungus Fletchery, really.
Andrew: Yes. I will happily rip people off with Bruce Springsteen tickets because I don’t know them personally, but with MuggleCast listeners, I feel like I know them personally.
[Andrew and Eric laugh]
Eric: Hashtag #Fletchery. There we go.
Andrew: Right, exactly.
Eric: I’ve created a hashtag. It’s fun. I understand why Jo did it.
Andrew: And then one other person I want to give a shout-out to is Trudy. Ran into her after the end of Part 1 and we took a selfie together, and that was fun. So shout-out to you both; it was nice seeing some Harry Potter fans we know there at the show.
Eric: Let’s talk about how we’re about to do a spoiler episode.
Andrew: Yeah, so that will be Episode 295. We are going to get into the big plot details, so if you don’t want to listen to those things, wait until you read the script book or see the play yourself. And of course, after July 31, in episodes after July 31 we will be talking about those spoilers more openly, again, with more people.
Eric: We’ll put it in the title; it’ll be very clear. We’ll do a monologue at the beginning of the show so that everybody’s protected. But we don’t… none of us have issues doing that, or have ever, so I think it’s going to be pretty clear that the next episode of MuggleCast, which we’re recording next, will be spoilery.
Andrew: It’ll be like the early days of MuggleCast, where we said, “If you haven’t read Half-Blood Prince yet, please press pause and switch to another podcast, or else you’re about to be spoiled.”
Eric: [laughs] You need the drums. You need the guitar.
Andrew: Hashtag #SnapeKillsDumbledore.
Eric: Oh, gosh.
Andrew: Hey, did you guys know we have a Patreon? I just wanted to give a quick plug to the Patreon, because time is running out to get a MuggleCast T-shirt. You can see the gorgeous designs on our website right now. If you sign up by July 31, you will be eligible to receive a T-shirt in a few months’ time after you’ve been signed up for a few months.
Eric: You guys, I didn’t tell you this; I am getting two made independently…
Andrew: Eric!
Eric: … so I can take them to Indy PopCon this weekend.
Micah: It’s Wormtaily.
Eric: No! No!
Andrew: That is Wormtaily.
Eric: It’s to help promote our Patreon, because I will be at Indy PopCon this weekend in Indianapolis. It’s at the Indiana Convention Center. Come on down if you live in Indiana; we’re going to be at a… we share a booth, okay? It’s MuggleCast sharing a booth with Resistance Radio, which is Hypable’s Star Wars podcast hosted by you-know-who, Mikey Bouchereau. Mikey B. from MuggleCast history is on his Star Wars podcast every week with Hypable’s Donya Abramo, and she is awesome and British, and Mikey is awesome. And I’ve had the pleasure of guesting… and Andrew and I guested on the first episode together. It’s a great podcast. We’ll be sharing a booth. We have MuggleCast buttons.
Andrew: For the very first time.
Eric: For the very first time! We have brilliant new banners…
Andrew: For free.
Eric: Yeah, for free. We have banners that we got printed, which look awesome – we just saw – and you’re going to come by and see them with the new MuggleCast art on it. And really, just if you’re at all in the area, we have to plug that. Come on down. And you’ll also get to see the Patreon shirts live, just so we can get the remaining 120 or so open spots closed up before July, when we have to start printing the shirts.
Andrew: We will also be at GeekyCon in Orlando, which is from July 29 to 31. We will be cohosting their Cursed Child midnight release party. I know I’m going to be excited to look at that book; I want to see what the heck this thing looks like inside. Are they going to describe the magic that was happening on stage? I want to know! So we are going to be there. We’re going to be doing some podcasting fun. GeekyCon.com; you can learn more about how to attend there in Orlando. And that’s it. So yeah, Episode 295 will be our spoiler episode. [laughs] Buckle in, buckle in. It’s going to get interesting.
Eric: Oh my God.
Andrew: Thank you, everybody, who’s been listening. I want to say thank you again to everybody who supported me and Hypable during the #Wormtaily scandal, and to those of you who didn’t agree with us, that’s fine, too.
Micah: Somehow.
Andrew: Yeah, I know. So thank you, everybody, for listening, and we’ll see you next time. Bye.
Eric and Micah: Bye.