Jobsite Theater actors Troy Padraic Brooks, Cameron Kubly and Logan Franke star in “Puffs Or, Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic,” running July 9 – August 3, 2025 at The Straz Center in Tampa. Credit: Courtesy of Concord Theatricals

Tampa’s Jobsite Theater is putting on a play that follows the side characters, extras and alleged space fillers in a certain world of wizardry.

The sorcery of “Puffs Or, Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic,” opening July 9, has less of a focus on the boy with the scar, and more attention to the wizarding wallflowers.

The off-Broadway show was written by Matt Cox started in 2015 in New York, and has been performed by the Straz Center’s nonprofit professional company for five years.

The work sheds light on the characters who may not have had any screen time in the movies that rhyme with Barry Cotter, but were definitely there.

Just like the famous series, Cox conjured up a trio of his own, all of whom have a very strong—slightly spiteful—opinion of a certain glasses-wearing, golden-snitch-catching wizard.

The show is “for anyone who has never been destined to save the world or anyone who has ever felt like a secondary character in someone else’s story,” according to Jobsite’s show description.

Tickets start at $30 for “Puffs Or, Seven Increasingly Eventful Years at a Certain School of Magic & Magic,” opening July 9 and running select dates through August 3 in Tampa.

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This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2025.