Month: September 2021

The inertia of beginning creating a full show can be overpowering. There are so many decisions that need to get made that it can be confusing to figure out where to start. The good (and bad) news is that there is no wrong (and therefore right) place to begin.

Nonetheless, we need to find a starting point. A guiding star that can help focus future decisions. I’ll go much deeper into process and prompts as the series goes on, but – at its core – the driving force of your show has to come from you.

What is it that you need to share with others? What is it that you know to be true? What is your take on this crazy world of ours that your audience may not have thought of?

And, perhaps most importantly, why? Why does this show need to exist? And why now?

There are easy answers (I want to share my magic with blah blah blah…), and there are more difficult answers that speak to who you are as a person and what you believe. If you take the time to work towards one of those, it will make the rest of the process flow more smoothly.

So now I’m off to figure out what my recurring parlor show is. Why it’s important to me and what I can bring to that experience that’s not already out there.

Over the last 10 years, I’ve created a TON of full shows. That’s my thing. I’d much rather dive into a full evening where a world is built and explored rather than see a smattering of tricks-of-the-day.

I’ve learned so much about my personal process for show creation (lovingly but tentatively titled “Show Craft” in an upcoming book), but it has mostly been through trial and error. While other art forms have more codified lessons/rules/instruction about intentional design, that hasn’t been fully incorporated into a magician’s study (yet!).

I’m excited to take what I’ve learned and share it with the magic community to see if it resonates, but before the ideas can be put out there in good faith, they need to be looked at critically. The past 2 years in particular have been all about rapid prototyping shows and material; so now with working theories and plenty of ideas/examples under my belt, I want to give it all a little breathing room, step back, and think about it calmly.

Part of this self-examination will inevitably entail comparison to what’s currently out there (see the Book List in a previous post for a starting point of what I’m talking about). One of the best starting points I’ve come across, which is our point of reflection for the day, comes from Derren Brown.

This master showman talks about his stage shows in particular as “being trapped in a room with X thousand people” for a couple hours” and he asks himself what he can do with them that would be interesting. Perhaps not the most guided or directed “how-to” prompt, but valuable in its selflessness. Derren is thinking about the audience experience from the very beginning, and – more to my sensibilities – thinking about the experience as a whole from the outset.

What experience are you trying to create that’s different from just another magic show?