Local theater fans can breathe a sigh of relief now that a judge has reportedly refused a request to block the mega-hits “Dear Evan Hansen” and “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” from opening at The Curran theater in San Francisco.
The ruling comes just days before “Evan Hansen” is set to kick of its Dec. 5-30 run at the theater. “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child” is set to make its West Coast premiere at The Curran in the fall of 2019, and court papers cited by the New York Times suggest the theater is eyeing a three-year extended run of the hit play drawn from the J.K. Rowling stories.
The decision marks the latest chapter in the ongoing feud between the Nederlanders and the Shorensteins, two families that were once allies in the theater-producing world and now stand as fierce competitors.
Nederlander of San Francisco, which operates the Orpheum and Golden Gate theaters, took legal action in September to try and block rival producer Carole Shorenstein Hays from staging the two mega-shows at the remodeled Curran Theater in San Francisco.
The argument was that staging those shows “would violate an agreement between the families restricting competition,” according to The New York Times.
The two parties (SHN, an acronym or Shorenstein Hays Nederlander) jointly operated the Curran, Orpheum and Golden Gate theaters in San Francisco — which were largely used for touring Broadway shows — until they parted ways four years ago. Hays re-opened the Curran in 2017 and has targeted the same brand of shows as SHN.
But the ruling issued Nov. 30 in the Court of Chancery in Delaware went against the Nederlanders. In the ruling, judge Tamika Montgomery-Reeves noted that the producers of the two shows “openly negotiated with multiple venues, which competed against each other to hold the productions,” according to The New York Times.
The Times added that the ruling was on a motion for a preliminary injunction; and that Brian Frawley, a lawyer for Hays, says she will move move to dismiss the overall case.
SHN was unsuccessful in a lawsuit with a similar claim, which was decided this summer.