PUFFS, the Comical Play, Relocating, Extends, and Expands with Saturday Matinees

PUFFS or: Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic has extended its off-Broadway run due to popular demand, and will soon appear at another venue, as if by wizardry.  It currently plays at The Elektra Theatre (300 West 43rd Street). Moving north a bit, it also goes from Off-Off-Broadway to Off-Broadway with a transfer to its new home at New World Stages (340 West 50th Street). After entertaining over 20,000 audience members in its current home, this summer the show will introduce new sets, new creatures and new family friendly performances, but the same beloved PUFFS! The new, open-ended production will have its first performance in its new home on Saturday, July 8, when it will expand to six performances a week, including two performances on Saturday and two on Sundays, with the two weekend afternoon ones designated “family-friendly” for audiences of all ages.  (Saturday matinee performances were recently added at the Elektra, and the New World run will have both Saturday and Sunday matinees.)

Presented by Tilted Windmills Theatricals, the show takes a second look at everyone’s favorite world of wizards through the eyes of the Puffs, a lovable group of magical misfits. The sold-out run at New York’s People’s Improv Theater from December 2015 through August 2016 and was called “a fast-paced romp” by The New York Times. The piece was written by Matt Cox and is directed by Kristin McCarthy Parker. Tickets are now on sale at www.PuffsthePlay.com.

When PUFFS officially opened earlier this season, it was praised by Entertainment Weekly as “packed with knowing winks to its source material and a heart all its own” and by The Huffington Post for its “rip-roaring staging, wit and delightful theatrical craft.” MTV News called it “equally laugh-out-loud funny and achingly tender.” Hypable said “Come prepared to laugh, but also to cry. The draw is Matt Cox’s brilliant script and the cast’s comedic chops” while Metro US hailed it as “hilariously heartfelt.” Mashable raved “PUFFS is, quite simply, hysterical.” According to Nerdist, “As surprised as I was by how much I laughed at PUFFS, I was all the more surprised at how it actually moved me.”

Press notes state that: “Some people are born with the capacity to do great things. Some people change the world. Some people rise from humble beginnings to defeat the forces of darkness in the face of insurmountable odds. PUFFS is the story of the people who sit in class next to those people.”   

Characters include Wayne, a very average boy from New Mexico, who finds out he is a wizard… and that wizards are real. So, he and his new friends try to keep their heads down and get a basic wizarding education while a certain other famous boy with a very peculiarly shaped scar on his forehead sets out to make life at school increasingly… eventful.

When PUFFS debuted at The Peoples Improv Theater last season, it was celebrated as “a tremendous comedic feast” by The New York Theatre Review. Hypable called it a “totally awesome” and On Stage Blog hailed the show “the best comedy in town, as funny as any of the biggest comedies on Broadway.” Theater is Easy calls it “blissfully hysterical.”

The full company features Langston Belton, Madeleine Bundy, Jessie Cannizzaro, Nick Carrillo, Anna Dart, A.J. Ditty, Julie Ann Earls, James Fouhey, Jake Keefe, Andy Miller, Zac Moon, Eleanor Philipsand Stephen Stout. Jumpstart Entertainment serves as general manager.

Production design is by Liz Blessing and Madeleine Bundy, lighting design by Michelle Kelleher, costume design by Madeleine Bundy, sound design by Matt Cox and original music by Brian Hoes.

The show is produced by Tilted Windmills Theatricals, Stamatios Tom Hiotis, John Paterakis, George Stephanopoulos andJonathan Feinsilver, in association with GG Entertainment, Invisible Wall Productions and Eric Kelhoffer, and Stephen Stout and Colin Waitt. It was originally produced at The Peoples Improv Theater by Stephen Stout and Colin Waitt, and developed in part during a residency with the University of Florida, School of Theatre + Dance, Jerry Dickey, School Director.

Performance schedule: The show currently plays Fridays at 7:30 PM, Saturdays at 3 PM and 9:30 PM and Sunday  Tickets prices: $51.50-$61.50 with $76.50 premium seats available. Premium seats with a t-shirt are $79.50.  For the run beginning July 8, tickets, which are on sale at Telecharge.com, are $67.00. Premium seats are $87.  On either side of the two-a-day weekends, there will be evening performances on Fridays and Mondays at 8 PM.

www.PuffsthePlay.com

www.facebook.com/puffstheplay – Twitter: @PuffsPlay – Instagram: PuffsPlay

  Matt Cox (Playwright) is also an actor, and improviser based in New York City. His other plays include: Cool Chefs Jr.; Adult Mutant Ninja Turtles; The Madness of Captain Dread; and the three-part epic Kapow-i GoGo (Time Out New York “Critics’ Pick,” Theatre Is Easy “Best Bet”). He also authored the radio play El Hombre Bovino for WNYC’s The Greene Space, and contributed to The Flea Theater’s The Mysteries. His work has been produced at The People’s Improv Theater, The Tank, and The Flea Theater, among other places. Matt has studied at The Upright Citizens Brigade, The Stella Adler Studio of Acting, Tarleton State University, and is a member of The Story Pirates. He is currently working on a book about an Orc. www.MattCoxLand.com

  Kristin McCarthy Parker (Director) is an NYC-based director and founding member of Recent Cutbacks.  Other recent projects: Kapow-i GoGo, Recent Cutbacks’ KEVIN!!!!!, Hold On To Your Butts and Fly, You Fools!, Monsoon Season (Sam French OOB Festival Finalist), Ship of Clowns (Fordham/Primary Stages), Franny’s Way (Rutgers University), and Dracula (Three Day Hangover). She has also directed and developed work at Ma-Yi, 59E59, The Flea, HERE Arts, Dixon Place, Columbia University, and the University of Florida, among others. Assistantships include Ed Iskandar, Michael Greif, Wendy Goldberg, and Trip Cullman.  

Tilted Windmills Theatricals (Producer) is a producing partnership between David Carpenter and John Arthur Pinckard. The company specializes in the development of new work for the American theater and is focused on producing artistically and commercially successful entertainment for under-served markets across North America.  Carpenter’s Broadway career has taken him from industry powerhouse Dodgers Theatricals (Jersey Boys, Matilda) to DreamWorks Theatricals.  Pinckard’s s producing career began over a decade ago with the cult festival hit Silence! the Musical. Soon he won the prestigious T. Edward Hambleton Fellowship for Creative Producers from Hal Prince, the 21-time Tony Award-winning producer and director. His work as an independent producer has garnered him four Tony Award nominations and two wins, for Clybourne Park and A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder.

Stephen Stout (Original Producer) is also an actor, producer and Artistic Director of The People’s Improv Theater. He co-produced the original sold-out run of PUFFS at The PIT as well as the geek theater epic Kapow-i GoGo. He co-created and produced the sold-out, late night hit SERIALSat the Flea Theater from 2011 to 2014. He also ran the New York wing of The Old Vic Theatre’s Old Vic New Voices and produced programming at 3LD, Soho House, The Vineyard, The Public and The Old Vic itself.

Colin Waitt (Original Producer) co-produced the original sold-out run of PUFFS at The Peoples Improv Theater.  He produces SERIALS, the Flea Theater’s late night short play competition.  Additional credits include cult sensation Kapow-i GoGo (The PIT), I Want To Be Your Man (Feinstein’s/54 Below), and Our House in Concert (Associate Producer, The Savoy Theater in London’s West End).

Jumpstart Entertainment (General Managers: Roy Gabay & Daniel Kuney) general manages Broadway, Off-Broadway and touring productions. Built by industry veterans, Gabay and Kuney, who have more than 30 years of combined experience on Broadway, Jumpstart productions have won thirteen Tony Awards, 14 Drama Desk Awards and three Pulitzer Prizes. Past productions include Rock of Ages, The 39 Steps, Honeymoon in Vegas, Heathers, Fela!, Metamorphoses, The Last Five Years, Wit, The Laramie Project and How I Learned to Drive. www.letsjumpstart.com

 

 

 

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