INTRO

Performer puts the QH on display and addresses the audience. As he talk to them, the lights come up and he takes back the flashlights he handed out earlier.

“Thank you all for being here. My name is Evan and I’m a magician. Which is an incredibly strange way to introduce yourself to other people. But I’m not talking about the ‘magician’ part of that sentence. I came to terms with that a long time ago and now I like watching peoples’ brains hiccup while they try to comprehend what it means.”

“No, what I’m talking about is that we introduce ourselves with our jobs. We ask for a name – which we promptly forget – and follow up with this nameless person by saying: ‘And what do you do?'”

“I think the job someone happens to be doing at a given point is a wildly unreliable indicator of who they are and what they’re like. Don’t get me wrong, some people are a perfect match for their job. Case in point [gesture to self].”

“But people end up in jobs for all sorts of reasons. So I think a more interesting question to get to know someone is what they would do if they could do anything except the thing they’re doing now.”

[RING WATCH WALLET (next script: 10c) feels like it actually belongs here. Continue the discussion about how we equate how people spend their time, what they do for money, with their identity; as though it indicates anything about WHO they are. Maybe perform with money, watch, and either an ID/license or the ring could work as a representative stand-in]

“I believe in leading by example, so I’ll go first. I’ve only ever imagined having three jobs. For most of my childhood, I was sure I would be a librarian. I lived in the library down the street from my house and the idea of hanging out in a building filled with nothing but ideas and stories was – and is – very appealing.”

“And obviously, one of the other jobs that called to me is being a magician. I get to tell stories, and show people things they would never see otherwise.”

“But for a brief period of time, or more accurately, for intermittent splashes of time, I’ve considered a third job. It was most pronounced in the spring of 2010. I was studying in Spain, and a group of us had been stranded in Amsterdam by an erupting Icelandic volcano. We were slowly making our way back to Madrid but we got held up in Paris for a few days. So, naturally, we check out the Louvre.”

“Keep in mind, we were not the only ones who were stranded. Everyone who was travelling through Europe had their flights grounded; so the tourists who were in Paris had already done the things they were going to do. Which meant when the group of us walked into the museum to check it out, it was empty. I walked for rooms at a time only seeing one or two people – if anyone.”

“I was able to walk straight up to the Mona Lisa, look at the Venus de Milo completely alone, and absorb everything the Louvre had to offer. And throughout most of that leisurely stroll through the world’s most treasured antiquities, this little voice in my head kept chiming in, saying: ‘You could totally steal that right now.’ ” [Note: probably need to rephrase this line. There’s a delicate balance between crafting a funny line and respect for the subject matter. Maybe phrase it more in terms of curiosity: “I wonder if…”].

“The only other full time job I’ve ever considered: international art thief. If you think about it, I’m professionally qualified for very few things in this world of ours. But the set of skills I’ve developed over the years is shockingly, unsettlingly close to that of a thief.”

“So every now and then, when I’m strolling through a museum, I’ll play a fun little game of ‘How-Would-I-Steal-That.’ I consider it professional development. And when I hear about museum heists, I’m fascinated by why the thieves make the choices they do, and how they end up getting caught.”

[There’s definitely a joke about asking if there are any law enforcement in the room somewhere in all this!]

“And when I hear about a theft gone wrong, that same, cocky voice pops back in and says ‘You could do it better.’ “

“I figure that the average person has something like five or six career changes in their life, so maybe I should explore this one now in case the magic thing ever dries up. I’m convinced that a magician could pull of the perfect heist, and I thought I’d show you what that would look like here tonight.”

“But first…” [segue into Out Of This World: Script 10d]