Eleven UF students will perform “Puffs; or, Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic,” a parody of a famous wizard story, this weekend.
This is the second consecutive year that UF School of Theatre + Dance students have worked with the creative team of Tilted Windmills, a New York-based production company, where UF alumnus John Pinckard is a managing partner.
The production company has been in Gainesville for four weeks developing “Puffs” with student actors and scenic, prop, costume and lighting designers.
Students have worked on this production five-hours-a-day, six-days-a-week, said Ernest Briggs, a graduate student who plays the role of Ernie Mac.
“It’s very funny,” Briggs said. “I hope the audience finds the humor in it, but I also hope they find the heart. It’s very honest and truthful and says a lot about growing up in general.”
“Puffs” is the story of Wayne Hopkins, a young boy in America who learns he is a wizard and goes off to a school of magic. He is placed in a group of loyal, but rather inept, young student wizards called “Puffs.”
“Puffs” premieres today at 7:30 p.m. in the Nadine McGuire Theatre and Dance Pavilion Black Box Theatre, located at 687 McCarty Drive. The show will also be performed Friday and Saturday at 7:30 p.m. and on Sunday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
“Unlike many parodies, this one has a good bit of heart to it,” said Jerry Dickey, the director of the UF School of Theatre + Dance. “There is a side of the characters that makes you really grow to like them; It’s not straight satire the whole time, it becomes a bit more sentimental.”
Tilted Windmills will be producing “Puffs” in an off-Broadway run early this fall. “Puffs” has been playing at the Peoples Improv Theater in New York to sold out audiences for the last six months, Dickey said.
Tilted Windmills develops these plays in Gainesville during the summer to remove themselves from the theater industry and focus on the show, according to John Pinckard, a two-time Tony Award-winning producer.
“I think the way that our actors are trained is to be open to anything, like losing or adding a scene, or to try something completely different,” said Briggs. “That environment helps people. We’re not closed off. We don’t say no; we say yes to new ideas and new thoughts as opposed to saying no or why.”
The Black Box Theatre has been set up to mirror the exact dimensions of the off-Broadway theater it will transfer to, and it will seat 130 people on the nights that it’s showing.
The Black Box Theatre “allows the director, creative team and the production designers to really simulate what they’re going to be experiencing when they transfer the play to New York,” Dickey said.
Last year, Tilted Windmills produced the musical “Volleygirls!” during a similar four-week development program at UF. During the residency, the creative team lives on campus in student housing.
While the creative team was in Gainesville, they conducted panels and workshops for students enrolled in Summer theater classes about directing, screen producing and moving to New York City, among other topics.
Tickets are $13 for students, $15 for faculty and staff and $18 for the general public through the University Box Office.
