Cairine Wilson Secondary School is known for having an excellent drama program and a highly successful improv team. The result is usually a highly entertaining theatre pro-duction put on every spring and this year was no different.

For this year’s production, they decided to spoof J.K. Rawling’s Harry Potter franchise with their version of Puffs, or Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic, written by New York based playwright Matt Cox and originally performed as an Off Broadway production in 2016.

The play follows the exploits of a misfit group of budding wizards, known as the Puffs. The group’s leader is Cedric, played by Finn Coleman, who is the less “nerdy” of the bunch. Other members include the lead characters of Wayne, played by Owen Murphy, Oliver, played by Mekhi Simpson Falcao, and Megan, who is played by Ocean Clark.

During the first year at Hogwarts, Oliver and Wayne find out that Mega’s mother is a former graduate of the school who spent time in WizPriz for working with the Dark Lord who wants to take over the school.

The first half of the play covers the first four years the Puffs are at Hogwarts. The final scene of the first half ends with Cedric being killed while trying to complete a challenge and earning points for his team.

In the second half of the play, the Puffs must battle the Dark Lord’s evil forces which draws the main characters closer together, it also puts them in mortal danger with several of them ending up getting killed, including Wayne.

In the end they triumph with the help of Megan’s mom who ultimately rejects the Dark Lord to save her daughter. In the process she realizes that she is a Puff too.

Although Harry Potter is not one of the lead characters in the play, his role as one of the top students at Hogwarts is woven throughout the production and he makes several appearances holding a mop with a red head, which is supposed to represent his friend Ron Weasley.

In end, Potter kills the Dark Lord’s lieu-tenant, Professor Voldy and he ends up taking all the credit for defeating the dark forces.

The surviving Puffs manage to graduate and in the play’s final scene the audience gets to see Megan and Oliver 19 years after the battle. The pair are now married and the have a daughter Wayne-a-lina who is about to follow in their footsteps at Hogwarts where she has been placed in the House of Puffs.

The Cairine Wilson production was highly entertaining and extremely funny with standout performances by all the lead actors whose improv skills were evident throughout the play.

If I had one issue it was with the fact they I have never read any of the Harry Potter books and I’ve only seen the first two movies, so most of the Harry Potter references went completely over my head.

That said, many people in the audience on the night I went were obvious Harry Potter fans because they seemed to laugh at all the Harry Potter-isms so the play hit the mark on pretty well every level.

Kudos to Cairine Wilson drama teacher Jennifer Alba, who acted as the play’s producer, as well as student director Avery Kaptein and the entire cast and production team for putting on another excellent production.