New Play ‘TERF’ Dramatizes JK Rowling’s Relationship With Harry Potter Stars

A new play set to premiere at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival called TERF follows J.K. Rowling on her descent into TERF-ism. 

Written by Joshua Kaplan, a former writer for Tokyo Vice, the one-act play focuses on a hypothetical intervention held for J.K. Rowling by former Harry Potter stars Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, and Rupert Grint in response to her public and rampant transphobia.

Due to its controversial subject matter, J.K. Rowling’s band of hardcore followers have been protesting the play even before it’s premiere. TERF has also had to move from Saint Stephens Theatre to the Assembly Rooms as a result of the uproar. 

Barry Church-Woods, the producer, told Deadline that the team is increasing security and putting plans in place in case of any protests during the show. “We expect that most people, if they’re intending on disrupting what we’re doing, that will happen in the auditorium of the theatre. We have processes in place that are going to deal with that,” he said. 

TERF will not portray Rowling as a “pantomime villain” and is not a “hit piece” Church-Woods and Kaplan explained to Deadline. Instead, Kaplan hopes audiences will see the play as a nuanced exploration of Rowling’s views, rather than the reductive and back-and-white social media conversations she participates in. 

In real life, Rowling and the Potter stars seem to have a tumultuous relationship. Radcliffe, Watson, and Grint all released statements supporting trans people in 2020 when Rowling’s anti-trans messages became clear on X.

Recently, Rowling responded to an X post hoping that Watson and Radcliffe would apologize for supporting trans people and that Rowling would forgive them saying that she would not and that “Celebs who cozied up to a movement intent on eroding women’s hard-won rights and who used their platforms to cheer on the transitioning of minors can save their apologies for traumatised detransitioners and vulnerable women reliant on single sex spaces.”

TERF will run from August 1-7 and August 11-25 in Edinburgh’s Assembly Ballroom.

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