The Independence Theater and Performing Arts department takes on the show “Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic and Magic” spoken by the Hufflepuffs of the Harry Potter world.

The show follows a young boy as he works to be a wizard and make new friends at Hogwarts as a Hufflepuff, while also trying to avoid attacks from evil beings. The Independence theater department has been working hard since the start of the year to be able to bring the show to our stage. The performances were on Nov. 12, 13, 19 and 20. 

Theater director Mr. David Noland has known since before the school year started that they would be doing Puffs. While Noland runs the auditions, selects the cast, and plays a big part in having the show run smoothly he says that, “I like to leave space for the students to have some creative license as well.” He is there to help supervise the students, “All of this is really student-centered, the team and I are just providing supervision.”

Behind the scenes, students work hard on stage setup, costuming, sound and lighting, to name a few. Bella Purucker (10) has been excited to finally be able to show all the work they have done. “We have a really good group of people. We have all of our queues down and I think we are just ready for everything. We are finally ready to just go and do our thing.” Purucker has been working hard with other tech crew students in building the sets, props and painting. During the show, she will be working backstage with the run crew and change the microphones when needed.

On stage, the cast has been working non-stop to give the audience a fun and exciting show. Kelly Donlan (12), who plays Leanne, is super excited to be back on the stage with a large audience after the COVID-19 pandemic. She had a rough start to the play because, “the day of the actual auditions I couldn’t be at school because I thought I was exposed to someone [who had COVID-19] so I had to stay home and do distance first auditions.” Donlan is so excited to be able to do Independence’s first big comedy play. She is excited to see how the audience will react and can’t wait to hear everyone laughing.

Drew D’amico (9) has heard great things about the Independence theater department. He has yet to see a high school theater production, but is excited to have his first one be Puffs. He is ecstatic to see how the Harry Potter world will be seen from a different point of view. “We all saw it from the Gryffindor point of view and I’m excited to see it from one of the side classes.”