Weekend spotlight: Parody in Pottersville, Pier music

Friday brings the opening night of Jobsite Theater’s production of PUFFS: Or, Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic, at the Jaeb Theatre inside Tampa’s Straz Center.

Matt Cox’s high-energy comedy is a parody of J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books and films, although since it’s unauthorized you won’t hear words like Hogwarts, Muggles or Quidditch. The bespectacled boy is in it – well, sort of – although “Ron” is a colored mop attached to a stick, and “Hermione” is little more than a big, lumpy ginger wig.

It’s about the Puffs, the lowest-rung “house” at stately old collegiate home somewhere in England. The Puffs are nerds and underachievers to the extreme, although the events of this one-joke-per-second play will ensure they come out … well, maybe not on top, but somewhere they can be the heroes of their own story.

“I thought, what would it have been like to have been another kid at that school?” Cox relayed to Slate in 2023. “What a horror show! You just wanted to get your wizard education, and every year, sh– keeps getting worse.”

The 11-member cast includes Cameron Kubly, Noa Freedman, Troy Brooks, Logan Franke, Rachel Gallagher, Katherine Yacko and others. Matthew McGee is the narrator, who’s onstage for nearly the entire show.

“Mechanically, the method here was to cram as many jokes and comedy bits in as possible,” Cox told Breaking Character. “If you’re not laughing at the wizard reference, hopefully you’re laughing at the other movie reference we made …

“On the other side of all that, it was important to have some pretty specific references in there as well. We wanted fans to have a ‘thing’ to celebrate … I think a wonderful bit of validation happens across the room for each audience member when they hear a bunch of people catch that joke they’d think only they might get.”

Puffs has a preview performance tonight, opens Friday and runs through Aug. 3. Find showtimes and tickets here.

At 620

Erica Sutherlin wrote this weekend’s Parallel Lives, a staged reading of first-person community narratives, being performed this weekend. “These original short plays spotlight pairs of individuals who share a common thread – whether it’s a profession, passion, or personal journey – but who have experienced that thread in completely different ways,” she says.

It takes place Friday and Saturday at The Studio@620 – Sutherlin is the Artistic Executive Director – and Jai Shanae, Jill Schroeder, Canela Vasquez and Donovan Whitney make up the cast.

Parallel Lives was developed in partnership with Florida Humanities. Find showtimes and reserve free tickets here.

At American Stage

Saturday (7 p.m.) in the upstairs lobby at American Stage: Anthony Gervais, Delores McKenzie, Mariela Zeno, Marguerite Reed and Jonathan O’Brien in a cabaret salute to the “Golden Years” of Broadway. Tickets can be found here.

Hello goodbye

Powerstories Theatre launches the dark comedy Witch Hunt Friday at Stageworks Theatre (read about the company, and the show, here); and Sunday brings down the curtain on the innovative freeFall production The House of Future Memory (this story will fill you in).

Dee O’Brien’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor opens its two-week run tonight at TheaterFor, the bay area’s newest playhouse (info and tickets here).

On The Pier

Saturday brings Beats on the Pier, part of the St. Pete Pier’s monthlong five-year anniversary celebration. From 3 to 11 p.m., there’ll be live music (and/or DJs) at six different temporary stages on The Pier. Among the performers: Bryan J. Hughes & the Crew, Pete Merrigan and T.C. Carr, Glass Half Full, Magic, Josh Nelms Band, Ben Rodgers Band, Taylor Reid and others.

Friday at the Palladium Side Door: Singer Allyson Briggs. Publicity photo.

Concert calendar

Check out improv comedian and Parks & Recreation actor Ben Schwartz (“& Friends”) Friday at Morsani Hall in the Straz Center. Tickets.

Nordic metal band Ghost haunts Amalie Arena Saturday. Tickets.

Friday at the Palladium Theater Side Door Cabaret: New York jazz chanteuse Allyson Briggs, performing selections from the Great American Songbook, her tribute to Peggy Lee at Carnegie Hall and her album of Burt Bacharach numbers. Info and tickets are at this link.

Saturday at the Palladium Theater Side Door Cabaret: Boogie woogie piano artist Henri Herbert and his rockin’ band. Find info and tickets here.

At the Mid Florida Credit Union: California punk band the Offspring Saturday, boy band Big Time Rush Sunday. All tickets are at this link.

The ageless Gladys Knight is back in the area for a Seminole Hard Rock Event Center show Sunday. Find tickets at this link.

Your Weekend Spotlight appears every Thursday in the Catalyst’s CREATE section. 

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