Transcript
The famous magician, Howard Thurston, once said, ‘A magician is just an actor playing the part of a magician.’
Your tricks and your effects can be spectacular, but what audiences are going to remember is you. One of the things to start thinking about once you’ve started to acquire an array of effects to perform is what kind of magician are you? What kind of powers are you claiming to have? What story are you really telling? That’s what’s going to stick with your audience.
Remember, there are all sorts of different magicians. Playing the part means figuring out who you are as a character. What works for someone, isn’t going to necessarily work for you.
For me, I think playing the part of a magician is all about figuring out what experience you want your audience to walk away with. What kind of experience do you want the audience to walk away with and who do you want them to remember you as? Are you the mysterious stranger in the bar? Are you the strange and unusual magician who’s traveled all throughout the world learning secrets as he’s traveled? There are all sorts of different things you can do. More than anything, it’s going to be about figuring out what works for you.
For me, my biggest interest is the mysteries of the mind. The things it’s capable of when we least expect it and the things we never thought it was capable of. That, to me, is the most interesting, but that might not work for you, at home.
