A short detour from the intricate world of ShowCraft.

Years before the official development of ShowCraft (2011 to be precise), one of my first public shows came to life. It was called “Speaking of Magic” and was a fusion of magic and storytelling through history. It touched on everything from creation myths, to Grecian legends, to fairy tales, up to the present moment in the theater.

Even from then, I knew I wanted my shows to have some sort of structure, though I didn’t yet have the terminology (theatrically, magically, or creatively) to dive in fully. I found myself organizing the pieces of the show into different arrangements until I landed on a temporal framework.

I couldn’t tell you why (maybe there was some innate structure I picked up on, or perhaps it was pure chance), but it ended up “working.” It gave the show some much needed structure (so it wasn’t a “trick parade”) and it helped guide towards the ending idea of the power of stories/words in our lives. It provided a preexisting Spectrum onto which the show’s pieces could be placed. It might not have the meticulous construction of designing a plot in accordance with a character’s goals or carefully developing a message, but it was a starting point.

In conjunction with the base “spectrum,” I had two bookend effects that helped contextualize the show. The opening piece (a version of Fiber Optics by Richard Sanders) introduced story elements to the audience and let them know what the show was about. The closing piece (a table levitation by Losander) illustrated my ideas on why stories are important. Which left the middle to share a variety of stories (and associated magic tricks) that I found compelling.

There wasn’t too much to the structure outside of that. The whole thing was tightly scripted and the transitions were carefully crafted, but internally, that was about the extent of it. When a trick wasn’t really working and I needed to change it out, I had the flexibility to do so without destroying my whole structure, while still giving the audience the sense of things being in a particular place for a reason (when a new piece came in, it was relatively clear where on my temporal spectrum it belonged).

There’s more to explore here, but I wanted to get the core idea down. And some additional “spectrum” structures could include:

  • Geography/Location
  • Time
  • Color (abstract!)
  • Complexity
  • Group size (starting small and getting larger or vice versa)
  • Personal Experience