Directing Internship on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

If you had told thirteen-year-old me - the girl on a family holiday who queued at every West End stage door with a programme and a Sharpie - that she would one day be sitting on a double-decker bus crossing the Thames to the Palace Theatre for work, she wouldn’t have believed you. She would have assumed you were confusing her with someone who could sing or dance.

This Masterclass internship was the first time my childhood idea of “the West End” stopped feeling distant and started becoming part of real life.

Growing up in Australia, commercial theatre only ever passed through for a few months at a time. London is different. Here, shows live and breathe over years. I wanted to understand the mechanics of that longevity: how a production maintains itself, how creative teams navigate cast change, and how the storytelling stays sharp night after night.

Working on Harry Potter and the Cursed Child during cast change gave me that window. Watching the show with a regular audience in the evening, then stepping into the rehearsal room the next morning, felt like rediscovering theatre from the inside out.

The directing team - Associate, Assistant, and the Intern (me) - joined the daily warm-up with the company. It’s part of the culture of the show: everyone begins the day together. Being in that room taught me how an ensemble stays connected and why physical cohesion underpins so much of the production’s storytelling. It was also a very welcome movement session in a job where directors often sit for hours.

I also had the opportunity to support rehearsals for the Young Harry scenes- tracking intention, flow, and spacing so the work didn’t stall. These moments taught me how to hold creative continuity within a very large machine, and how to keep four actors engaged when only one could actively rehearse at a time. Cast change is built on constant movement. People step in and out. Scenes still need to be tested, timed, and shaped.

When necessary, I read in for missing actors so rehearsals could progress. I enjoyed it far more than I expected - and it gave me a small glimpse into the world of covers and swings. I was dubbed “Aussie Harry” almost immediately. My favourite day was attempting to juggle playing Harry and Young Harry at the same time. By the end of my time at HPCC, I had developed different voices for several characters, although Uncle Vernon, for reasons unknown, stayed stubbornly ocker Australian.

The biggest surprise was how un-intimidating commercial theatre felt once I was inside it. The rooms were bigger, yes, but with that came structure, shared language, and generosity. Everyone remembers being new. And once I settled, I realised the work itself wasn’t foreign - it was the same craft I’d developed on independent stages in Sydney, simply scaled up.

This internship clarified the direction I want to grow in: a UK career that moves between mainstage institutions and commercial productions, learning from experienced directors and understanding how large shows evolve and endure. I’ve become deeply interested in the balance between clarity and care, and in the leadership it takes to sustain a story for years rather than weeks.

I’m grateful to Masterclass for making this opportunity possible, and to Sonia Friedman Productions for welcoming me into their world. Their support opened a door that once felt unreachable - mostly because it’s literally 24 hours away by plane - and what I found on the other side wasn’t a world I needed permission to enter, but one I could genuinely contribute to with the skills I already had.

This feels like the first page of my London chapter. I’ve been taken under a few very kind cloaks in this city, and I’m excited to see what comes next.