We love a good parody here at the HRACT Awards headquarters (meaning… our couch at home, but sometimes if we are feeling particularly formal – our dining room table).  We also love us some Harry Potter (why yes, that was us you saw in a full Niffler robe/blanket and a “you’re so poor” Weasley-style sweater at the show on Saturday night).  There are, however, a lot of pitfalls when you take a beloved franchise and take a swing at turning it into full-on comedy – what if the people who love the franchise get defensive and so turn on your parody?  What if your audience is too limited to just huge fans who will understand all of your inside jokes and references?  And what if you can’t quite find the right stand-in for Rupert Grint and so just cast a mop instead?

Peninsula Community Theatre’s “Puffs, or: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic”, playing now, successfully navigates all of the above, delivering a fun time right from the get-go, and maintaining the comedic momentum throughout.  Rather than approaching the source material directly as a retelling, this show instead introduces us to its own “Golden Trio” – Wayne, Oliver, and Megan – who just so happen to be beginning their seven year educational journey at the same time as that other, more famous crew.  As they enter the school for the first time, they are met with four suspiciously colored doors on stage, as if they are leading to some specific houses you may have heard of before.  Then, a hat tells each of them which door to enter (after all – “when a hat speaks, you listen”) – and, as it turns out, all three got the yellow door – the Puffs!

Wayne – who is an orphan but does not wear particularly round glasses – is played wonderfully by Joey Pendleton, who knows when and where to emphasize a line to its greatest comedic effect.  Oliver, played by HRACT Award nominee Andrew Smith, may not have red hair, but does seem to know a lot about the non-wizarding world, and Smith’s portrayal of the character’s disappointment in not having the normal academic classes, like math, in this new school is quite amusing.  And Megan – the badass goth kid whose mom is in “Wiz Priz”, is played with attitude and verve by Aries Donaldson.

These three are excellent, and the audience roots for them as their friendship develops.  There to take us through all seven books (and eight movies) of plot is the Narrator, played with appropriate British stiffness by Mark Glickstein, who doesn’t just guide us through the action but is additive to the humor.  A major part of that action?  Why, it is that one O.G. Puff that you can probably name off the top of your head – Cedric Diggory!  Notably gregarious, charming, and full of charisma, Scott Briggs, who we enjoyed in LTN’s “Ride the Cyclone” earlier this season, is the perfect choice for Diggory (and later, for that one evil wizard we don’t ever name). 

However, at its core, “Puffs” is really an ensemble piece, with a group of six actors taking on the daunting task of being… just about everyone else in the wizarding world.  And these six are more than up to the task, completely buying into each request thrown at them by director and set designer Jeff Corriveau, and making the world come to life.  A quick sampling…

1. Maya Garcia doing her best wizard mug shot, tongue out and all,
2. Riley Brooker channeling her recent role of Bogle as she hops around the stage as a house-elf who promises they have “ALWAYS BEEN HERE” despite suddenly showing up in the later books,
3. Cody Kaelin’s Fat Friar’s constant laments of “aww my self esteeeeeeeemmmmm!”,
4. Rachel Madden’s turn as that most famous wizard always waltzing in and making it about himself,
5. Tyler Reeves’ headmaster with strange priorities who definitely doesn’t look completely different between years two and three, and
6. Isabel Carden’s Leanne, who just wants to have a nice slumber party.

Each member of the ensemble has lines that we were quoting to each other in the car on the way home, but my personal favorite is when they are all together, creating the various Puff emergency formations, chanting that they are not a threat – it is just a very Puff thing to do, endearingly weak and yet somehow strong together in spirit. 

With so much plot to cover in less than two hours, things move quick, and Corriveau challenges his cast to keep the dialogue (and themselves) moving with quick and varied entrances and exits throughout.  Not only does the speed of this show push the cast’s limits – but also must have the light and sound board operator’s (Jeff Stout and Chasida Taylor, respectively) heads spinning – and yet, they nailed every single cue, a truly remarkable feat.  Tom McIlvain’s sound design is littered with little cues for a spell here and the awarding of house points there, and never does it feel awkward or unnecessary.  And the lighting, designed by the multi-talented Z. F. Norris, was actually the first thing we mentioned to each other when we left the theater.  There are over 280 light cues, according to Corriveau’s director’s note, and each were beautifully designed, from overhead lights to single color-changing bulbs on stage.  And the lighting even had a few tricks of its own – don’t blink or you’ll miss a very cool and well-executed deluminator trick right at the beginning of the show. 

Like any good parody, this one ends with a lesson – we are all heroes in some stories and supporting characters in others, and all those stories happen simultaneously.  Just so happens that, for the Puffs, the supporting character story is the one that became one of the most well-loved stories of our time.  But that doesn’t negate their hero story.  And it doesn’t mean we don’t all have moments of Puff-iness – like when you accidentally close without saving, or when you drop your phone into that little crevice between the seat and the middle console in your car that leads to, apparently, a complex system of cracks, all just slightly smaller than your fingers, and then a huge open area that you can never fully feel with your hand.  So whether you are a Snake, Brave, Smart, or the rest of us – embrace those Puffy moments – for as was noted – Puffs are “like the Mighty Ducks…. no, the Mighty Ducks 2 – but of wizards!”  And who wouldn’t want to be coached by Emilio Estevez to a rousing victory in an international competition, only to be cut from the varsity team in Mighty Ducks 3, am I right?