The notion that the staging of the play Harry Potter should be raw magic and street theater rather than high-tech theater, was essential.

I live in New York, so I'm used to the audiences that cheer and clap through a play. It is unusual for London audiences.

The theater is a communal experience, and whatever the emotional connection between an audience member and the actors onstage, it ripples through the whole audience. Part of the fun of the play is being a part of that audience.

The play has to work for the super fans, and not speak down to them, and yet it had to play to those people who maybe had never read a Harry Potter book or seen the films.

New York is obviously the capital of theater.

I find it very invigorating having Ken Lonergan, who's an established, Pulitzer-nominated playwright doing Howards End, or Chris Hampton who's won an Oscar writing a TV series, or having an actor like Mark Rylance, who is probably England's leading theater actor, in the lead in Wolf Hall.

I think where Playground is heading is deeper into that marriage between stage, film and television, with the increasing number of people in the film business working in television, obviously something that we were very influential in starting and doing at HBO. And I think that that's the focus of where I see the company moving forward, continuing to explore that intersection of all that talent.