OFVS’ 'Puffs' Tell the Tale of a Familiar Wizarding School

A local theater group, Our Fabulous Variety Show (OFVS), is getting ready to launch “Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic,” its fall production, featuring an entire ensemble of student actors. Shows will be the first weekend in December at LTV Studios in Wainscott.

Founded in 2010 by friends and performers Anita Boyer and Kasia Klimiuk, OFVS is a nonprofit performance and arts education organization based on the East End that produces full-scale and showcase productions, as well as educational programming. The group’s mission is to create an inclusive environment for performers.

It’s Boyer and Klimiuk who are co-directing this show, which is described as a “comedic retelling of a certain wizarding story,” but this time, from the perspective of the “Puffs” rather than the well-known boy wizard. The play is billed as a tale for anyone who has never been destined to save the world, and in a recent interview Boyer explained that she and Klimiuk were introduced to this show by one of OFVS’s teaching artists.

“The kids started learning a scene from the show, and they loved it,” Boyer said, “and they’re all Harry Potter fans.”

“It’s set in the ’90s, with lots of references just for ’90s kids,” added Klimiuk.

But this play is not, technically speaking, the story of Harry Potter. For copyright reasons, OFVS was not able to secure rights to that famous story, so they settled on “Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic,” a parody of J.K. Rowling’s multi-book series. Written by New York playwright Matt Cox, “Puffs” premiered Off-Off Broadway at The People’s Improv Theater in December 2015, before moving to Off-Broadway and New World Stages in 2016. In 2017, the show was nominated for the Off-Broadway Alliance Award for “Best Unique Theatrical Experience.”

Boyer explained that choosing to do this play was something completely different for OFVS, given that, for the group’s younger performers, she and Klimiuk tend to write their own shows.

“This is a fun experiment,” said Boyer. “And it’s been really cool to just let them dive into characters that are already created, that are familiar, but then lean into their forte, which is comedy and improv.”

“It’s really comedic and funny, and it’s a really heartfelt story about love and friendship,” added Klimiuk. “So I think that’s kind of what gravitated us to it as well.”

That’s not to say the production has been an easy one to pull off. Boyer noted that everyone in the cast is onstage for nearly the entire show, and in many cases, as different characters. The young actors are also trying to tell the seven years of the Hogwarts story — and the epilogue — in less than two hours. The group has gotten together to rehearse the show for the past few months on Fridays and Saturdays, and now that the performance dates are approaching, has added Monday nights to their schedule.

“[The young actors] are so close to creating something that’s more than just entertaining for their parents and grandparents,” said Boyer.

Beyond the play itself, Boyer said the student actors are learning what it means to be in a professional production while juggling the challenges of being back in the classroom in a post-COVID-19 world, as well as other extracurriculars.

“When you have a cast of wildly talented kids who are coming into this realm, they’re obviously going to be pulled in a lot of directions between sports and their school productions and things like that,” said Boyer. “But I also think that it’s a great experience for them for this show, in particular for them to understand it’s not even just about how well they know their lines or their blocking, it’s that they need to be there every day for their fellow castmates.”

The cast features student actors Patrick Conlon, Jack Davis, Lorenzo DeCarlo Cooper, Isla McLean, Sabrina Mello Da Silva, Anya Oza, Alessa Picco, Jadiel Rodríguez, Lorenzo Rodriguez, Lorianne Rodriguez, Sofia Rowe, Nicole Seitz, Riley Simmons, Thomas Sulfaro and Matthew Venesina. OCVS alumni will also be providing prerecorded voiceovers.

Conlon, 13, a resident of Springs, has starred in shows like “Shrek” and “The Lion King” and he said this production is a “really new and fascinating experience, because of its maturity level.”

The young actors are even receiving intimacy coaching to prepare for the “little lovey-dovey moments,” Boyer said, and allow for changes to be made as needed to ensure everything stays age-appropriate, and everyone is comfortable.

Ultimately, the cast is just thrilled to see its hard work finally come to life.

“I’m really excited for some of the audience’s reactions because reading the script and looking through everything that my castmates have been doing in rehearsal, it’s very funny,” said Seitz, who lives in East Hampton. “I can’t wait to see how people take it when we’re actually in the space.”

“Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic” will be presented by the young performers of Our Fabulous Variety Show on Friday, December 2, at 7 p.m., and Saturday, December 3, at 2 and 7 p.m. The show will take place at LTV Studios, 75 Industrial Road, Wainscott. Tickets are $10-$25 for students and $15-$35 for adults with VIP seating available for both. Purchase tickets at ourfabulousvarietyshow.org/tickets or 631-507-4603.