Muggles beware! Hogwarts rebel! Wizards rejoice! If you've long called Harry Potter, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger friends, then you are the perfect candidates to make up the audience when "Potted Potter-The Unauthorized Harry Experience-A Parody by Dan and Jeff" comes to town.
The Bushnell Center for the Performing Arts in Hartford is inviting you to take your cloak of invisibility and your magic wand the weekends of May 17-19 and May 24-26 to enjoy all things Harry Potter.
Hop aboard your Nimbus 2000 and polish your Golden Snitch and prepare for the ride of your life as a two man parody team, Gary Trainor of Ireland and Delme Thomas of Wales travel across the pond to bring you seventy minutes of non-stop fun and joy.
Trainor is the plucky lad Harry who discovers at age 11 that he has magical powers and has been stuck living in a world peopled by non-magical folks called Muggles. Thomas plays everyone else in Harry's world, from pals to principals at the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, to that dastardly enemy, Lord Voldemart, whose goal is to conquer the world and who is also responsible for making Harry an orphan.
With affection, wit and tongue firmly in cheek, the pair use hats, wigs, puppets and props to condense 4000 pages of fantasy by J. K.Rowling into a show that is "75% scripted and 25% improv" according to Gary Trainor who has been playing the dedicated hero for a year and a half. While he's read the books several times, he had never seen the original show starring the writers Daniel Clarkson and Jefferson Turner before auditioning himself. Clarkson and Turner are busy preparing the show, which has been a hit from London's West End to Australia and New Zealand, Hong Kong to the Phillipines, to open May 30 to September 1 off -Broadway at the Little Shubert Theatre. You can see it here first!
The concept began as a five minute skit six years ago, with the aim to complete 5 books in 5 minutes, to entertain the long lines of crowds waiting to see one of the now 8 Harry Potter movies. The sketch was so well received, it has been expanded to the version coming to the Bushnell. To Trainor,"it's 70 minutes of hilarity where the audience is invited to be the third character and we break down the fourth wall." A smashing game of Quidditch is also on the agenda.
The show appeals to a wide range of ages, and because of the accessible books and movies, there is something for everyone There's even a rumor that J. K. Rowling tried to buy a ticket to the show in Edinburgh, Scotland, a 60-seat venue, and was turned away because it was sold out and she wasn't recognized in time.
For tickets ($49.75 and up), call the Bushnell, 166 Capitol Avenue, Hartford at 860-987-5900 or online at www.bushnell.org. Performances are Friday at 7, Saturday at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m.
Be prepared to hang on to Harry's coattails as this talented Celtic tour-de-force flies into town.
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