EPHRAIM— Snow College Department of Theatre opens their 2025-2026 season with Puffs written by Matt Cox, directed by Jason Craig West (SC faculty). Performed in the Kim Christison mainstage proscenium theatre at the Eccles Center for the Performing Arts, the stage is a good size for such a large and busy production, but the 550 seat house seems outsized for the community it serves, and was not very full for the Saturday matinee performance I attended. This is unfortunate because a raucous comedy like Puffs thrives on audience feedback, and it can be challenging for actors to play to mostly empty seats. Despite this challenge, the students put on a fun and well-crafted show.
Cox cleverly takes the story of Harry Potter and turns it inside out, telling a parallel parody of an unknown hero and friends in the Hufflepuff House. The references to the original are legion and someone unfamiliar with the Potter universe is likely going to miss most of the jokes. But it is a good fit for a younger cast and audience familiar with the series. Nevertheless, the script is challenging—it has not been watered down to make it easy for students to produce. It is filled to the brim with quick changing scenes, lightning fast character and costume changes, dialects and general chaos and mayhem.
The leads of the show are well cast with William Monroe as a very likeable Wayne Hopkins, and Sobi Ross as a delightfully awkward Oliver Rivers. Leia Alitagtag nails the angsty teen vibe of her Megan Jones, and Jackson Davis is a very capable Narrator. The rest of the cast is strong and each plays at least six characters, all deserving credit just for juggling those roles. Notable stand outs in the ensemble are Henry Everett as Cedric, and especially as the Dark Lord. There are moments in the production that aren’t scripted, but specifically written as improvisation. Some of these moments fall flat, but Everett’s improvised monologue about the Dark Lord’s lack of footwear is hilarious. Also Rachel Scherbel’s dialect work is excellent, and she gives a stellar performance in all her roles. Hayden Williams also stands out in his myriad of professor roles, and Golden Sims is strong as J. Finch, Uncle Dave and others. Lydia LeFevre is delightful as Leanne and others. Generally there is a greater need for clean enunciation, and just slowing down some of the words, as some jokes are thrown away and plot points missed. However, overall, the cast is very strong. They project, work well as an ensemble, and draw in the audience for the ride.
The set design by Trent Bean (faculty) creates a versatile space that easily morphs from train station to various locations within the magical school grounds. An intricately cut out drop, painted to resemble colorful railways station trusses, frames the top of the proscenium, and an elevated space upstage center uses the depth of the stage well, sometimes adorned with a painted drop creating a sense of a train tunnel disappearing into the distance.
The preshow is a fun element with overhead announcements to students, and carts of luggage being brought on stage, generating positive energy for the pending production. However, the cast also brings on large, awkward doors during this preshow which is more distracting than fun, as they are very unwieldy to move, and in some cases, seem dangerously so. These pieces are better suited to being pre-set, around which the luggage and smaller items could be placed during the preshow.
Quick pacing is extremely important with this script, but it can’t go so fast that the comedy is unintelligible. West’s staging is generally well-paced, though there are times where the pacing is too fast, and jokes are lost. West uses the space effectively, even utilizing the aisles and interacting with the audience. There are lovely shadow puppet moments behind the upstage alcove that are unfortunately difficult to see from the center of the house because of the staging of the characters downstage that block the shadows behind. I sat a bit off-center for the second half of the show, and the shadows read better, but staging the downstage elements to one side would improve sight lines for these segments.
The puppets are the most delightful element of the production. Puppet Designer and Faculty Member Jess Wallace’s work is interlaced throughout and is not limited to a single style of puppetry. Rather, there are hand puppets like the sorting hat, rod puppet ghosts and crocheted owls, large spectacle puppets in the form of a dragon and basilisk. There is even a delightful house-elf puppet with echoes of bunraku (traditional Japanese puppetry)—and they’re all fantastic. I lost count of the number of puppets and some, like the stunning giant spider and patchwork puppy (replete with sparkly bloody gore after its beheading) have very brief stage time, including a flock of Dementor puppets suspended from bouncing rods which, despite the brevity of their appearance, were particularly impactful for their sheer number and flowy movement.
Managing such a wide array of puppets is no small feat, even for seasoned puppeteers. The students, both within the cast and as part of the stage crew, handle the puppetry with varying degrees of skill. One of the most important tools of effective puppetry with a visible puppeteer, is focus. If a puppeteer watches the puppet, the audience focus is also drawn to the puppet. If the puppeteer’s focus is whatever the puppet’s focus is, the audience doesn’t know where to look, and the puppet/puppeteer becomes a less convincing, two-headed beast. Rachel Scherbel who operates the Myrtle puppet and Evelyn Perry who operates the Bippy puppet are the most consistent at directing focus, as are the operators of the dragon and basilisk, while many of the puppeteers are less so. This tactic is so powerful, yet simple, that the production would benefit greatly if all the puppeteers were more consistent and intentional with focus.
Wallace is also credited for costume design, and the costuming is fantastic. The three piece suit sported by Jackson Davis as the Narrator is lovely, and his heeled suede boots are a unique but effective choice. The puffs are costumed in delightfully eclectic pieces with splashes of plaid and touches of textured sweaters, all connected with shades of yellow and blue. The headmaster’s flowing yarn beard is also notable, as is the Dark Lord’s flesh colored knit cap and perfect tiny tinted beatnik glasses. And although they make a brief appearance, the elements layered onto the cast for the final scene in the future, add just the right touch to suggest the aging of the youngsters—especially Oliver’s lovely yellow wool Chesterfield coat.
Snow’s Puffs is a solid student production and a fun way to enjoy the spooky season. West’s director’s note accurately describes how most of us at times feel like we’re just a “side character in someone else’s grand story” but Puffs reminds us that we all have an important story to tell.
