Black Hermione fine with JK Rowling

Noma Dumezweni and Emma Watson, who played Hermione in the Harry Potter movies. Photo / Getty Images, Supplied

Author ‘loves’ casting of Swaziland-born actor for new two-part Harry Potter play.

J.K. Rowling has said she "loves" the fact that Hermione Granger will be played by a black actress in the highly anticipated new Harry Potter play.

The author said the character's ethnicity was never specified following the announcement that Swaziland-born actress Noma Dumezweni will play the muggle-born witch in Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, which opens in London's West End next summer.

The play, which portrays Harry and his friends as adults, also stars Jamie Parker, 36, as Harry and Paul Thornley as Ron Weasley.

Rowling, who devised the production with playwright Jack Thorne and director John Tiffany, was quick to respond to an outpouring of largely positive reaction from fans after the casting announcement was made.

"Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever," the author wrote on Twitter. "White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione."

Canon: brown eyes, frizzy hair and very clever. White skin was never specified. Rowling loves black Hermione 😘 https://t.co/5fKX4InjTH

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) December 21, 2015

Dumezweni, 46, takes up the mantle from Emma Watson, who played Hermione in the film series based on the books. Theatre audiences will find her Hermione married to Ron Weasley and working as a lawyer in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

Dumezweni was born in Swaziland to South African parents who had fled apartheid, and moved with her mother and sister to Suffolk when she was 7.

She has starred in The Winter's Tale and Romeo and Juliet for the Royal Shakespeare Company and won an Olivier Award in 2006 for her role as Ruth Younger in A Raisin in the Sun.

Noma Dumezweni. Photo / Twitter @MissDumezweni

More recently, she won plaudits playing the title role in Linda, Penelope Skinner's hit play, at the Royal Court. Doctor Who fans may recognise her from her appearances alongside David Tennant as an army captain.

Hermione's ethnicity has proved a subject of much discussion over the years, with Harry Potter fans noting there is no reference to her skin colour and that she could be black. She is introduced with a description of "bushy brown hair and brown eyes".

Tiffany said he had cast the best possible actors for the roles and that they "will be an incredible and estimable triumvirate".

The Cursed Child consists of two parts, for which theatre-goers must buy separate tickets and which are intended to be seen in swift succession.

Although previews for the production begin in late May, the official opening is July 30.

The vast majority of tickets for the run, which is planned to continue until late May 2017, have sold out. Telegraph Group Ltd