Stage to PagePlaybill Mixtape: Off-Broadway Puffs Star Jessie Cannizarro Shares Her Pre-Show PlaylistThe original cast member of the Harry Potter spinoff play reveals the tunes she and her castmates listen to before every performance.
By
Ruthie Fierberg
September 27, 2018
Jessie Cannizzaro
Jessica Osber
“I was this close to just sending in the Mamma Mia! soundtrack and calling it a day, because more often than not, that is the music we’re dancing to backstage,” says Jessie Cannizzaro who stars as Sally and Others in Off-Broadway’s long-running hit Puffs. A spinoff comedy based on the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling, Puffs follows the events at a “certain school of magic & magic“ through the perspective of the less-considered house: the Puffs.
Cannizzaro has been with Puffs since Day One, when it debuted at the People’s Improv Theatre before moving to Off-Broadway’s Elektra and finally settling into its current Off-Broadway run at New World Stages. (The production celebrates two years at NWS September 29!)
Stephen Stout, Eleanor Philips, Nick Carrillo, James Fouhey, Andy Miller (Behind), Jessie Cannizzaro, Langston Belton, and Zac Moon
Hunter Canning
“Puffs is a fast-paced comedy, and we need a pre-show playlist that gets us pumped up to run around the stage while wearing a cape and waving a wand,” she says. “Anyone who closely follows the Puffs Instagram stories knows that our pre-show dressing room playlist has three absolute staples that are, for whatever reason, played before every show: 1. “Playing with the Boys” by Kenny Loggins from the Top Gun soundtrack. 2. The theme song from the 1996 classic animated/live-action feature film Space Jam. 3. The complete discography of ABBA, the greatest Swedish pop sensation of all time (and the cast album and movie soundtrack therein inspired by their excellent tunage). I couldn’t quite tell you what it is about these three distinct musical stylings that so inspires our cast eight shows a week.”
For this week’s Playbill Mixtape, Cannizzaro mixed these staples with plenty of ’90s favorites and other songs to “give you a a taste of our absurd, energetic, and very, very silly backstage shenanigans.”
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JESSIE CANNIZZARO’S PUFFS PRE-SHOW PLAYLIST
Find musical inspiration with a new Playbill Mixtape every other Thursday on Playbill.com.
