Scripting Magic by Pete McCabe

Every Everythin thing g I do is dedicated to my wife Pattie and an d our our so sons Monty Mon ty and an d Robby Robby

Also by Pete McCabe Astonishin Asto nishing g New N ew Twists Twist s with Paul Harris' Reality Twister Featuri Featuring ng Lubor Lu bor''s Lens Pizza Every Day for a Month Bowling Every Day for a Month

Sc Scr i pti ng Ma M ag i c by Pete McCabe and 26 other guys 45 scripts, 13 essays, 7 interviews, and 1 flowchart to make you a better magician m agician Copyright © 2007 Oth er copyright copyrightss held by the creators of the individual individual scripts Design Consultant Kay Kaminski Proofread by John Lovick John Lovick's notes not es proofr p roofread ead by Rich Cowley Cowley The Benson book proofread pro ofread by Shawn Shawn McMaster McM aster All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or our entire intellectual-property-based way of o f life will will be com complete pletely ly dest destro roye yed d Printed in Canada ∙ Third printing 2009

You You Already Already Script Script Ever Every y Trick Trick You You D o ................................ ................................................. ....................2 ...2 How to Read This Book................................... ................................................. ............................. ..............................4 ...............4 Script Scriptwri writin ting g 1 0 1 .............................. ................................................ ................................ ............................. ............................. .............. 8 Coins Across. Across...................... ................................ ................................................ ................................ ............................... ............... 14 14 .

The Th e Vortex • Pete M c C a b e ................................ ................................................ ................................ ...................... ...... 15 Tom and Restored Card .................................. .................................................. ................................ .............................20 .............20 It'll Be A Miracle • Pete M cC ab e............ e................. ......... ......... .......... ......... ......... .......... ......... ......... ......... .... 21 The Invisible Deck ................ Deck ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ........................ ........ 26 26 It’s the Future • Pete McCabe................................................................27 Super Powers • Pete McCabe................................................................34 My Tribute to Verno Ve rnon n • Pete Pete M cC a b e............ e................. ......... ......... ......... ......... .......... ......... ......... ..... 39

Eugene Burger and John Lovick: A Theatrical Endeavor ..................44 Gypsy Thread .................................. .................................................. ................................ ................................ .............................. .............. 55 Cosmic Thread • Eugene Burger.........................................................56 Human Thread • Eugene Burger........................................................60 Forming an Eternity • John Lovick......................................................63 The Handsome Jack Lovemeter • John Lovick.................................66

Developing Character: How do you do that? ...................................... 70

Card to Pocket............... Pocket .............................. ................................ ............................... ............................. ................................ ................... 73 I Care • Pete McCabe..............................................................................74 J onathan Levit: An Actor Playing the Part of a Magician ..................82 No-Script Scripting ................................ ................................................ ................................ ................................ ................... ... 9 7 The Add-A-Number Prediction................ Prediction ................................ ................................ ................................ ..................99 ..99 It Adds Up • Pete McCabe...................................................................100 Marked Marke d D eck ec k ................................. ................................................. ................................ ................................ ............................. ............. 10 106 6 ...................................... 10 8 The Human Galvanometer • Gary Ouellet Ouellet...................................... ................................................ ................................ ........................... ........... 116 Echoes • Pete McCabe ................................ The Cincinnati Kid • Pete McCabe.....................................................123 My Favorite Things Thin gs • Pete McC M cCab abe....... e............ ......... ........ ......... ......... ......... ......... ......... .......... ........ ... 126 12 6 Jon Jo n Arms Ar mstro trong ng:: G oing oi ng with the F lo w ................................ ................................................ ....................13 ....13 1 My Opening Act • Jon Armstrong......................................................143

Scripting for Effect ................................ ................................................ ................................ ................................ ................... ... 14 4 Triumph.................. Triumph.................................. ................................ ................................ ................................ ................................ ...................... ...... 14 1455 All A ll the Cards Card s Turn Tur n Face Up • Pete M cCab cC ab e..................................... e..................................... 147 14 7

...................................................................153 The Trick that Fooled Einstein Einstein...................................................................153 Grandma's Purse • Paul Green...........................................................154 The Southwest Miracle ............................................................................. 159 This is Reality • Kenton Knepper.......................................................160 Magician's Magician's Ch Choic oicee...................................................................................... 167 16 7 Hotel 52 • David Davi d Reg R eg a l..................... l.............................. .................. ................. ................. .................. ................. ........ 169 16 9

Just Just Say Say Yes.................................... ................ ........................................ ........................................ ........................................ .................... 175 The Self-Cutting Banana........................................................................... Banana ........................................................................... 181 Yes! • Larry W hite............. hit e...................... .................. .................. ................. ................. .................. .................. ................18 .......1822

Max Maven: Scripting Tricks................. .......................... .................. .................. .................. .................. .............1 ....19 91 Dram Dr am a........................ a................................. .................. .................. .................. .................. ................. ................. .................. ..................20 .........2033 Gemini Twins.............................................................................................207 Twins .............................................................................................207 Mate for Life • Pete M cC ab e........................ e................................. .................. .................. .................. ........... .. 20 8

Teller: Entering Uncharted Terrain ................ ......................... .................. .................. .................. ...........2 ..214 14 The Backstory ...........................................................................................220 ...........................................................................................220 The 41-Cent Miracle...................................................................................222 Miracle ...................................................................................222 Grandp Gra ndpa's a's Coins C oins • Michael Am m a r.......... r.............. ........ ........ ....... ....... ....... ....... ........ ........ ........ ...... .. 223 The Open Prediction.................................................................................. Prediction.................................................................................. 228 The Cassandra Quandary • Guy Hollingworth..............................229

Rafael Benatar: The Practice of Magic................... ............................ .................. .................. ............ ... 237 Scripting Dealer Tricks.......................................................................... 250 The Dark Card ............................................................................................251 Card ............................................................................................251 The Magic Red Card of Mystery • Bob Farmer...............................252 Hot Rod ....................................................................................................... ....................................................................................................... 260 ......................................... 2 6 2 The Birthstone Sampler • Pete McCabe McCabe.........................................

.............................................................................................269 Svengali Deck .............................................................................................269 Exhibit A • Jim Steinmeyer ............................................................... 270 Chop Cup ....................................... ................... ........................................ ........................................ ........................................ .................... 275 Tomahawk Chop • Joe M. Turner......................................................276 The Th e Fruit Cup • Pete M cCab cC abe............... e........................ .................. ................. ................. .................. ........... 282 28 2 The Koornwinder Kar ................................................................................287 ................................................................................287 Joey's Joe y's Hero He ro • Bruce Bru ce Ba Barn rnett ett......... .................. .................. .................. .................. .................. .................. ......... 288 28 8

Michael Close: A Little Bit of Truth .....................................................295 Scripting and Repertoire................. .......................... .................. .................. .................. ................. ................. ........... 308 30 8

The $100 Bill Switch ................................................................................. 309 30 9 Double Your Money Back • Pete McCabe.........................................310 The Eleven Card Trick ................................................................................. ................................................................................. 314 31 4 The Incredible Mystery My stery o f the Tenth Tenth Card • Eric M ead..... ea d........ ....... ....... .....316 ..316 I Must Be Cheating • Pete McCabe .................................................. 3 29 UnDo Influence..........................................................................................340 Influence ..........................................................................................340 Watchin Wa tching g The T he Detect Det ectives ives • David R e g a l............................................ l.. .......................................... 341 34 1 The Thumbtip Silk Vanish....................................................................... Vanish ....................................................................... 350 The End o f the Rainbow Rain bow • Eric H en n ing...... in g......... ...... ....... ....... ...... ....... ....... ...... ....... ....... ...... ....351 .351 Wild Card .....................................................................................................356 ...................................................................................................356 Seven-Card Monte • Larry Jennings...................................................358 Scriptin Scripting g Count C ountss ..................................................................................... 364 The Business Card Prophesy.....................................................................369 Prophesy .....................................................................369 Fortune Cookie • Mark Jo J o e rg e r................... r........................ ............. ............... ............. ............. ............. ...... 370 Two in the Hand, One in the Pocket........................................................375 Pocket ........................................................375 Repeat • Pete M cC ab e................... e......................... ............. .............. ............. ............. ............... ............... ............. ........ 376 37 6 I’ ve ve Got a Surprise Surprise for You: You: Essay by Jamy Ian Sw iss is s ...................... 379 37 9

A Hell He ll o f a Trick Tric k • Jam Ja m y Ian S w is s ..................................................... 391 39 1 The Five Senses • Jamy Ian Swiss.....................................................402 Should We Order a Pizza? • Vic Sussman ...................................... 4 0 6 What Wha t it Takes to Be Happ Ha ppyy • S é an O’Né O’N éill il l...................................... 4 0 9 Titles and Sentences................................................................................414 Sentences ................................................................................414 The The Ace Assem bly.......................................................................................419 bly.......................................................................................419 When W hen Magic Ma gician ianss Play Pla y Poker Pok er • Pete M c C a b e ...................................421 Mental Cheating • Pete McCabe.......................................................429 Out of This World .......................................................................................439 .......................................................................................439 Secret Powers • Pete M cC ab e................ e....................... ............ ............. ............... ............. ............. ........... .... 4 4 0 Adaptation.................................................................................... Adaptation.................................................................................... ............ 44 8 Other Resources........................................................................................452 Resources........................................................................................452

Thank You

Michael Ammar

G uy Hollingworth

ill Sé an O’Né ill

Jon Arm A rmstro strong ng

Larry Jennings

Gary Ouellet

Bruce Barnett

David Regal

Mark Joerger

Jim Steinmeyer

Rafael Benatar Kenton Knepper

Vic Sussman Sussm an

Eugene Burger Jonathan Levit Levit

Jamy Jam y Ian Swiss

Michael Close Bob Farmer

John Lovick

Paul Green Eric H ennin g

Teller

Max Maven

Joe M. M . Turner

Eric Mead

Larry White

There is an excellent chance that you are reading this book because of the outstanding magicians who have have contribute contributed d to to it— it — magicians ma gicians who gave gen  erously of their time, their experience, and in many cases actual scripts with which wh ich they the y m ake ak e their the ir living. livi ng. They did not do this this for the reward I dangled in front o f them (a free copy o f the book), book), and an d they’re already well-known and respected in the world of o f magic. mag ic. They did it because they believe that scripting your magic will make you a better magician. They all believe that scripting can make you more effective, more entertaining, m ore dramatic, and most o f all, all, more magical. This book would not exist exist without their excellence excellence as mag icians and as hu h u man being b eings. s. I f this book is no good, then I must mus t really have dropped the the ball, ball, because I got serious help on this project. This is a great time to remind every one that copyright and droit morale for all of the contributed scripts rests with the individuals who contributed them. My deepest thanks, and your free book is in the mail.

You Already Script Every Trick You Do

I

want to define what I mean by scrip ting m agic. I do this partly because I’m one of those people who like to distill things to their most essen tial. But mostly because I spent an hour on my definition, and I don’t

want all that tim e to be wasted.

Scripting magic is deciding how you're going to present a trick before you perform it.

When you think o f it this way, it’s hard to argue against the idea that you should script every trick you do. In fact, i f you think o f it that way, you already do script every trick you do. Even if you just narrate your actions, or read the patter from the instructions (which may well be the same thing), that’s still a decision you make before you perform the trick. I say this because I know a lot o f magicians who think scripting means mak ing up a story to go with each trick— where the Jacks are the detectives, and the deck is the bank, and the selected card has a curse on it— and then saying the exact same thing every time you do the trick. That’s just one type of scripting magic. You’ll be pleased to know that not one o f the 45 scripts in this book have the Jacks as detectives. Well, one— from David Regal. But only one! The rest vary wildly, from simple to complex, from detailed scripts to basic outlines. You can script every word you say. Or you can devise a loose structure on which to improvise, as a conversation, You can create a script in a lot of ways, writing it in advance, or working it out in reh earsal or performance. You can script just one key line, or a basic outline, or a beginning and end with a flexible middle, or an entire presentation. So the goal of this book is not to get you to script your magic. You already script every trick you do. The goal of this book is to help you script your magic better, so what you say during your tricks makes the trick more effective. It is not hard to create a better script than the one that comes with the instru ctions, or the one you improvise by narrating your actions. And i f you do want to nar rate your actions, you can create a script that will do so more effectively than i f you were to improvise.

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The secret goal of this book is to reduce the use of the word “patter” within the magic community. I hate this wo rd— to call what you say during a per-

formance “patter" completely misses its importance. My Webster's New Un abridged Dictionary gives this definition: Patter (n): 1) to speak or mumble rapidly or glibly; 2) to recite mechanically or thoughtlessly; 3) language peculiar to a group and not generally understood by out siders; 4) idle, meaningless chatter; the glib, rapid speech of salesmen, circus barkers, magicians, etc. Do any o f these sound appealing to you? What you say during your p erform ance is your script. Whether you wrote it in advance, or someone else wrote it and you're perf orm ing it, or even i f you’re just making it up. Your audience doesn’t think o f it as patter— or maybe they do, if you just chatter meaninglessly. They think o f it as your script. Your audi ence thinks of it as a script. You should take it at least as seriously as your audi ence does.

Learn to do the sleight or secret move to perfection, then spend hours on what to say.

Dai Vernon SCRIPTING MAGIC | 3

How to Read This Book

S

kim freely, as you would any magic book. But read this chapter first, since it explains a few conventions use d in the book, without which everything else may not be so clear. I f you’ve never read a script, this section will also help you understa nd the format.

This book has three types of entries: essays, interviews, and scripts; each

script includes a background section, the script itself, and some notes.

Background The Backgroun d sections vary considerably. Some talk about history o f the trick itself; some talk about other presentations. Some talk about specific pre sentational challenges and/or solutions illuminated by the script. A few ex plain things that make the script easier to read.

The Script This book uses screenplay format, w hich is explained in the next chapter. Scripts are written from the audience’s perspective. This is one o f the most important lessons of this book. Sometimes the biggest benefit you get from scripting is insight into the audience’s perspective. What do you want them to remember? What do you want them to perceive? These questions are of paramount importance, and I know of no better way to address them than by scripting your magic. Each script begins with a scene line that tells when and where it’s being performed. These lines are easy to overlook, because they’re not particularly interesting. But venue is important, and you w ill want to know i f the script is meant for an informal or formal setting. The next couple of lines set the stage— is the magician sitting or standing, is there a large crowd or just one person, things like that. These lines also in troduce the characters in the script, including the spectators. Sometimes the spectators have specific names, which we’ll get to in a minute. One frequent issu e is scripts in which the magician interacts with the audi ence; for example, talking to the spectator when a card is selected. It’s obvious ly impossible to script these precisely and thoroughly in advance, and I didn’t want every third script to begin with "(insert improvised selection process here).” What I did — and I’ll try to remind you when it comes u p — is include a sample of the kind of interaction that these sections are trying to generate. So just think of it as one possible way the beginning of the script might go. Also keep in mind that each magician will handle these sections differently.

SCRIPTING MAGIC I 4

Characters In each script, the part of the magician will have the name of the person who wrote the script. So if it's one o f my scripts, the character named Pete is the magician. If it's Eugene Burger's script, the character named Eugene is the magician. I've worked with several magicians who, when tackling their first scripts, wrote them in the third person, as in “the magician holds up a deck o f cards." They're used to writing up tricks for publication, where you want the read ers to imagine themselves doing the trick. But if you're writing a script for yourself, it's a hindrance. One o f the goals o f scripting magic is to put more of your own personality into the script. The first step is to write the script for yo urs elf— not just “the magician ." Make everything about the script as personal as you can— starting with your name. You don't want the spectators to think of you as just “the magician,” so don't describe yourself that way. Whatever you do, don't use “I” to refer to the magician. Th e script is from the audience's perspective. Most scripts will have one or more audience members who speak, and the names of the characters will sometimes depend on the requirements of the trick. For example, you may have two cards selected, and you need the first to be from someone on your right and the second from someo ne on your left. Or you may have a trick for a couple, where the m an and the wom an have specific parts. The names used in the script serves as a reminder of these things. The m ost com mon spectator nam e is Alex. Alex is used to indicate that the spectator could be anyone, male or female, sitting anywhere. If the script re quires a woman, you will see Eve; if a man, it's Adam. I f you need the person to be to your left for some reason (usually to cover a move), it's Lee; to your right is Ricky, someone in the center is Chris. Here is the list, in case you ever need to refer back to it later. Alex is any person, anywhere Lee is any person to your left Chris is any person in the center (across from you) Ricky is any person to your right Adam is any man Eve is any wom an

Dialog It's very easy when reading a script to skip the “stage directions” and just read the dialog. Don't do it. First of all, these scripts don't have stage direc-

SCRIPTING MAGIC | 5

tions; they're action lines, and they’re very important. One of the best things you can do with a script is replace a line of dialog with an action that accom plishes the same thing. For example, say you have a piece of glass, and you want to communicate that it’s solid. You can say "It’s solid,” or you can tap it with som ething, and it rings like crystal.

The Play's the Thing As you learn to script well, you will develop the ability to tell how som ething will play in performance. This is impossible to teach, but not hard to learn if you get som e practice. And it's price less— the most valuable experience I had while w orking on Sports Night was getting to read all the scripts in advance and then hear them at the table read (where they are first performed for any kind o f audience). At the beginning o f the year I was constantly surp rised wh en the audience would laugh at lines that had seemed mundane when I read them. By the 23rd episode, I had a pretty good idea how a script would play. For example. Tom Burgoon did a bit in a show at the Magic Castle Palace Theater, where he borrows a quarter and pretends to keep it— the stage m an ager brings out a metal bucket, and Tom throws in the coin. As the stage man ager leaves, Tom asks “how we doing this week?” The stage manager shakes the bucket, jingling the coins. How does this read to you? This shake of the bucket gets a laugh. It gets a laugh every time. I’ve seen it several times, and I've laughed every time. It’s just funny. I f you can read that, and tell that it will get a lau gh, you’re way ahead o f the game.

Notes This section discusses method, including the setup, if any. All of my own tricks are explained, and most of the contributed scripts, but not all scripts have detailed methods. Some moves are mentioned but not explained; this is not a book to teach technique. Moves are discussed if I have anything to offer on them, or if a specific handling is required. Many moves can be improved i f you think about them from a scripting perspective; see "Scripting Counts” on page 272. There are also general notes about things that aren’t really moves, but you have to do them a certain way, which you don’t want the audience to notice. For example, the script may say “Pete puts the deck down,” because that’s all you want the audience to perceive. But you may need to put it down a certain w ay— face up or face down, near the edge o f the table, in position for som e move to come, etc. This will be included in the Notes. Basically the Notes are a reminder of everything you have to do to make the trick work, which the

SCRIPTING MAGIC | 8

spectators are not aware of.

The rule is, if you don't want your audience to perceive it, do not put it in the script. This is actually pretty important. The script doesn’t just describe the presentation from the spectator’s perspective, it describes the presentation as you want the spectators to perceive and remem ber it. Th is, in many ways, is the essence of magic. The most important part of the Notes section is Adaptation, where you’ll find ideas on making the script yours. In the scripts that I’ve written, I’ll discuss choices you’ll face if you want to perform it, and for the contributed scripts, I’ll talk about how I would approach the trick if I were to add it to my repertoire. Obviously with some scripts, like the ones I’ve written, you should feel free to use any or all of the script if you want. Others, like the scripts for the Gypsy Thread contributed by Eugene Burger and John Lovick, you should not perform them, but instead see how they work, and why, and learn tech niques that you can use in your own scripts. Don’t overlook the Adaptation sections. Learning to adapt a trick to fit your personal style is a vital part of developing a personal style. Seeing examples o f other people’s adaptations helps you appreciate how many things you can vary. Most magicians learn, say, a coin trick, and when they go to personalize it, they change the moves. But what i f you replace the coins with poker chips, or brass washers, or track-and-field medals? When Al Baker said that most magicians stop thinking too soon, this is just the kind o f thing he was talking about.

We must neverforget that the details o f presentation are what make a trick. And study and thought brings us those details. The usual trouble is that we don't bother to think long enough or hard enough.

Al Baker SCRIPTING MAGIC | 7

Scriptwriting 101

The script is of ultimate importance when presenting an effect in a professional manner.

David Regal

T

his quote is pretty typical of what magic’s best thinkers and per formers have to say about scripting magic, as you’ll see for the next 400-odd pages. I carry little weight in this company, so if the other guys don’t convince you, I sure won’t.

Still, although there are many essays on the importance and benefits of

scripting your magic, there is precious little instruction on how to do so. I’m a teacher and a writer (and scriptwriter), so I can teach you how to write a script if you don’t know already. It’s not that hard.

Perspective The script describes everything that happens during the trick from the au  dience's perspective. I f writing a script does nothing more than help you think about your magic from the audience’s perspective, it will make you a better magician.

The Script Scripts are pretty simple. The sample on the next page is in what’s called Screenplay (i.e., movie) format, which is also used by most TV dramas. This is the best format for magic; Sitcom and Video format are both harder to read. This is, also, an intentionally bad script that no one would ever write. But you would be amazed how close many magicians come to this example in performance. So that’s one benefit of scripting mag ic— you won’t be as bad as this. The first line, "Joe Magician reaches etc.” is called an Action line. Action lines run the width of the page, with a double return after every paragraph. I set the spacing to 12 points after paragraph, so this happens automatically. But then, I’m a geek. O f course, you’re reading a magic book. Action lines include everything that isn’t dialog. You smile, the spectator signs a card, we hear the sound o f a piece o f paper ripping — everything you want the audience to perceive. And only include what you want the audience to remember. If you drop your hand to your side to turn over the top card against your leg, don’t put that in the script. Don’t even put it in parentheses,

SCRIPTING MAGIC | 8

Joe Magician reaches into his pocket and pulls out a red sponge ball. He hold s it up for everyone to see. Joe Here I have a sp on ge ball. If I put it in my hand... Joe puts the ball in his hand. Joe How many balls do I have in my hand? Spectator One? Joe Wrong! I have two! Joe opens his hand, showing two red sponge balls. Joe One, two. You idiot! Ha ha ha ha ha.

to remind yourself of the method. Your script plays a powerful role in deter min ing what the audience experiences. If you don't want them to experience your methods, don't put them in your scripts. Every action line is an opportunity to communicate something, so take your time writing them. “ Pete puts the card on the table'' is pretty vague. “ Pete plac es the card on the table” suggests a little care is being taken. “Pete slams the card on the table” is even more suggestive. A great habit when writing Action lines is to ask you rse lf how your character would influence your actions. I f I'm nervous, I might flub a shuffle. If I'm smooth, the shuffle will be impressive in some way. Action lines make characters. To improve your Action lines, read good movie scripts. Many are available on line— most writers I know start at Drew's Script-o-rama (script-o-rama. com). Make sure you get a script and not a transcript— this is crucial. A script was written by the person who wrote the movie. A transcript was written by a person who watched the movie and wrote down what happened.

Dialog is indented an inch on each side, with the same double returns as in action lines. Character names are indented another inch (two inches total).

Not all scripts have dialog. Cast Away was a three-hour movie with about twenty minutes of talking. The point is, you don’t have to say everything. This is another important benefit of writing good Action lines: The more you can show the audience, the less you have to tell them. The most important step in writing dialog is reading it out loud, in your full performance voice, with inflections, exactly as you would perform it. Most people do not write the way they talk. Reading your dialog out loud is the only cure. This is a hugely important point. I have long suspected that the real reason many magicians don't like scripting their performances is that they are not very good at reading dialog. But often the problem is the script itself. I f the dialog is not natural to you, you will sound unnatural when you say it. The solution is to rewrite the dialog. By the way, sometimes you will see “Pete (Cont.)” as a character name. In a movie or TV script, any time one character talks, then there’s an action line, then the same character speaks again, “(Cont.)” is put after the character’s name. I don’t use this convention throughout. There are many scripts in this book in which only the magician speaks; rather than put “(Cont.)” every time, I only put it in when it would make things clearer.

Conventions You Can Blithely Ignore Most TV and movie scripts use the Courier font. This is a pointless conven tion. Courier is a monospace font, for god’s sake, and it is not at all easy to read. In this book the scripts are in Lucida, which looks nice. Palatino is prob ably the easiest-to-read font on your computer, so use that. Also by convention, in a script you cannot use italics or bold, but you can use underline. This is another stupidly pointless limitation. Use italics, bold, whatever you want. Underline is the one thing you probably don't want to u se — it’s harder to read. Scripts all have an extra half-inch margin on the left side, so they can be three-hole-punched and bound with brass brads. Your scripts won’t be long enough to need this.

Software Over the last 30 years I have used dozens o f word processors and three scriptwriting programs. It’s easy to format a script with any of them, so use what you know. If you’re using a word processor, set up two styles: Dialog and Action. • Action is 12-point Palatino with full margins (i.e., zero on left and right). • Dialog is 12-point Palatino with margins 1 inch from the left and right. Put

SCRIPTING MAGIC | 10

a tab stop at the 2-inch mark for the character's names. Set up a command-key combination for each style, so you can switch back

and forth easily. And starting writing.

A vanced d tips If you are comfortable with the more advanced features of your word processor, you can make things even easier for yourself: • Set the “ Space after Paragraph” for the Action style to 12 points, so the extra returns between paragraphs will automatically be taken care of • If you want to put the Space after Paragraph to 12 points for Dialog, you'll have to use a line break instead of a return character after the character's name. I f you don't know what a line break is, don't bother with this.

• Turn on the paragraph format setting for “keep lines together” in both your Action and Dialog styles. That way each paragraph will stay on the same page. This makes everything easier to read.

Script Software I 've used these three: • Scriptware: I used this program every day for several years and it crashed at least once each day. Still, I kept using it, because it never brought down my system, so I could start it back up in about three seconds, and I couldn't afford a replacement. This is where I learned to hit command-S every time I pause for a few seconds. • Screenwriter 20 00 : This is what I use now. I have yet to find a feature that it doesn't do and do well. I don't think it's ever crashed. And the company has great support. • Final Draft: A lot o f writers us e this, and it's rob ust and full-featured. I didn't like the interface, but that was 5 years ago.

The art o f writing is the art o fapplying the seat of the pants to the seat o f the chair

Mary Heaton Vorse The Real Work The real work in scriptwriting, as in magic itself, is jus t that— it's real work. The only way to get good at anything is to do it for a long time. To get really good, make it a long, longtime. The first time you sit down to write a script, you may have no idea what to

write. One way around this is to put on a tape recorder and perform a routine, then sit down and transcribe what you said. Then read it. You may be sur prised at how boring it reads. This is incredibly common. The good news is, with a little scripting your magic will soon be much more entertaining, and more magical to boot. Now that you have a script, you can start making it better. Take every sen tence you don't need and eliminate it. Take every one you need and make it shorter or more interesting. Take every line that narrates your action and re place it with a line that comments on the action, which will do the same job in a more interesting way. Look out for long runs of dialog with no action. There's a good chance this will cause your audience's eyes to glaze over. Let me show you how this can work. I took the sponge-ball script from the beginn ing o f this article— the one where Joe Magician laughs at the idiot spectator— and spent 15 minutes trying to make it better. The results are on the next page, but don't look ahead yet. Actually, go back and read the original, then read the description of what I did, and then think about how you might do the same things. Then see how I did it. My first thought was to establish a premise, something for the presenta tion to be about. I started with the effect: The sponge is multiplying. Now, I'm pretty sure sponges reproduce asexually. This becomes the basis of the presentation, and everything else flowed right from that idea, including the “mood music” gag, which I really like. You migh t not choose asexual reproduction. Some performers don't like to emphasize that they're working with something compressible like a sponge; these performers will definitely want to pick some theme other than the asexual reproduction o f the com mon sponge. But pick something that appeals to you. Anything that means something to you will make your presentation stronger. I improved some o f the Action lines too. For example, “Joe puts the ball in his hand” was changed to “Joe closes his hand around the ball.” This, I think, is what you want the audience to rem em ber— not the transfer o f the ball from hand to hand.

Beyond Scriptwriting The only thing more important than working your script out in advance is remaining fully alive to your audience. That interaction takes priority over any script, and you must be ready and willing to leave the script behind and go with your audience at a mom ent's notice. The script will always be there when you come back.

C RIPTING MAGIC | 12 S

Chances Are... by Pete McCabe Joe This is a sponge ball. Joe holds up a red sponge ball. Joe Sponges reproduce asexually. That means you only need one. If I put it in a dark place... Joe closes his hand around the ball. Joe A little romantic lighting... Joe opens his fingers just a tiny bit. Joe ...mood music. Clears his throat. Joe (singing, to his fist) “Chances are...” (to audience) It could work. Joe opens his hand—there are two red sponge balls. Joe It worked!

Coins Across

F

or the first script of the book, I wanted to choose a very simple ex ample of the benefits of scripting. As you’ll see, there is no big story

wrapped around the trick, and the script doesn’t have any great jokes or clever lines. It mostly talks about what you’re doing, so it’s almost

a narrative script. But there’s a big difference between a script like this and one that simply talks about what you’re doing. In this script I mention what I’m doing, and I comment on it, but I’m talking about something else. This is where most narrative scripts fall flat; all they are about is what you’re doing. In this script I only mention what I’m doing to clarify and dramatize the overall point o f the script, w hich is the idea o f the vortex. It is this structural device of the vortex that makes this presentation effec tive. Many beginning scriptwriters focus on lines, and underestimate the im portance of structure. When I’m writing a script, the structure or hook comes first. Occasionally a good opening line, or a good closing line (or, best of all, an opening/closing line combination) will pop into my head before I have the structure. But I don’t write the script until I know what’s going to drive the presentation. The first presentation I used with this trick was very standard, with a script that highlighted the cleanliness of the handling (which is explained in the notes). This was okay, but it was all about what I was doing. Then, about ten years ago, I developed the "vortex” presentation you’re about to read, which uses the exact same handling but creates a very different effect. The new pre sentation has six magical moments, by usin g the strategy of breaking the p as sage of each coin into a separate vanish and reappearance. More importantly, the external reality of the trick has changed, in a way that directs the audi ence’ s attention away from the mu ndane details of the handling, and makes the magical effect seem more real. This, I’ d say, is exactly the goal o f any ma gi cal presentation.


The Vortex By Pete McCabe Int—LIVING ROOM—Evening Pete sits at a table, on which sits a small candle. Pete adjusts the candle to the exact center of the table. Pete Magic requires energy. That’s why magic ians u se a magic wand; i t’s a source of energy. In this trick, I use fire. Pete places three quarters on his left palm. Pete I’m not strong enough to do this on my own, but the flame creates a vortex—I’ll show you. Pete slowly closes his hand into a fist over the coins. Pete Three coins go into the vortex. But only two come out. Pete’s hand passes over the flame, then opens: only two coins. Pete The third is still in the vortex. Pete stares as the flame. Pete Here it is. Pete reaches into the flame and plucks out the missing coin. Pete Ow. Pete slaps the coin on the table and blows on his fingers.

Pete Little hot in there.

Pete shows the two coins in his left hand, then closes it. Pete Two coins enter... His hand passes through the flame, then opens: only one coin. Pete ...one coin leaves. The longer it stays in the vortex, the hotter it gets. Pete licks his fingers, then plucks the second coin from the flame. He immediately slaps it onto the table. Pete looks at the one coin remaining in his left hand. Pete People always ask, Why don’t you make the last coin go visibly? I’ll show you. Pete touches the coin to the flame, then puts it on the table. Pete That’s why. It’s much more magical... Pete picks up the last coin from the table and holds it up. Pete ...to do it invisibly. Pete passes the coin through the flame, and it vanishes. He licks his fingers, and plucks the last coin from the flame. He pl ace s it on th e table wit h th e others. Pete That’s the energy in a vortex of fire.

The End


Notes on The Vortex The basic idea of the vortex drives everything in this presentation. It justif i e s the use of the candle. It motivates breaking each coin’s passage into two s e p a r a t e magical moments. And the apparent heat of the vortex justifies both t h e slapping action of the Han Ping Chien and licking your fingers, which makes the final unnesting move easier. You can probably apply this to any vers i o n of Coins Across you already do. I use quarters for this trick — and for all the coin magic I do — because

t h e y’re more ordinary. But this presentation has a certain formal style built i

nto it, so if you bring out your special coins, it will still seem natural.

Method This trick is an extension of Geoff Latta’s “Thumb Touch Coins Across" routine from CoinMagic, to which I added a shell. When I first came up with this idea, I was extremely pleased by how clean it is. You show three coins in your left hand, close it and open it, and one coin is gone; the right hand slaps the coin on the table. This is immediately repeated with no extraneous actions whatsoever— no counting the coins from hand to hand or to the table, no steals, no hands coming together, etc. The third coin is very clean, but it uses an old gag so it isn’t quite as pure. But overall, I am not aware of a cleaner Coins Across routine. Most o f the credit goes to Geoff.

Performance Start by showing three coins; two quarters and a shell. Put the coins in your palm-up left hand; the shell goes last, overlapping the coin nearest the heel o f your hand. Keeping the hand palm up, close it, nesting the shell. Slowly pass your hand th rough the flame, and open it, showing two coins, as you explain that one coin was sucked into the flame. The left hand closes, and the right hand apparently plucks the coin from the flame and slaps it down on the table. In reality, you do Geoff Latta’s Ultimate Han Ping Chien move to produce the coin from under the shell. Here’s how: After you open your left hand to show only two coins, you look at the flame, as if trying to see the coin left behind. The left hand closes, but stays palm up. The tips of the third and fourth fingers curl over the edge of the shell and lift it just high enough to clear the coin underneath. This also creates a gap at the pinky side of the fist. None of this is visible to the audi ence, although it won’t matter, because after the fantastically clean vanish, all attention is on the flame. Reach into the flame with your empty right hand an d act like you’ve grasped


a coin. Look at the coin you’re pretending to hold, and smile.

Now slap the (pretend) coin onto the table in front of you. As the right hand comes down, the left hand moves out of the way to your left. The left hand moves out from under the second coin, which falls onto the table under the right hand. It helps if the left hand m oves very slightly downward first. This palm up handling is Geoff Latta’s addition to the classic Han Ping Chien move. It's extremely elegant and disarming; having your hands palm up creates an atmosphere o f fairness. Practice this one well; your right fingers should touch the coin, gently, before the coin hits the table. Slapping the coin on the table is a great moment for a silent script. As you hold up the coin to look at it, think "Got it” and then almost immediately think “Hot!” If you actually said these things it would completely undermine the moment. But if you just think them, and then blow on your fingers, it’ll completely justify the slapping action of the Han Ping Chien. Leave the first coin on the table and repeat everything for the second coin; open the left hand, showin g two coins, close the hand (nesting the shell), wave it through the flame, and open to show one coin. Repeat the H.P.C. move to pluck the coin from the flame. This coin should be slapped down directly onto the one already on the table. If not, adjust the coins so one slightly overlaps the other. But to tell you the truth, i f you can’t do the move well eno ugh to control where the coin goes, then you probably should practice your Ultim ate Han Ping Chien some more. Open the left hand, showing the last coin (the shell), and mention that ev eryone always wants to see the coin travel visibly. Demonstrate by touching the coin (shell) to the flame, then placing it onto the two already on the table, overlapping the uppermost coin to the right. After this classic but solid gag, you apparently pick up the coin in the left hand, but really you nest the shell onto one o f the coins and come away with nothing. The left hand moves into the flame and “va nish es” the coin. Lick your right fingers, then pretend to pluck the coin and lay it on the table. As your hand moves away to reveal the third coin, you secretly un ne st the shell and move it to the right, half its diameter. The key to this unnesting move is that the right hand moves from left to right as it approaches the two coins. The right hand touches the coins and keeps m oving; the thumb hits the back of the shell and lifts it up just long enough for the coin to move to the right, then lets go as the hand moves aside. Your fingers will be extra tacky from licking them, which makes this move easier.


Adaptation T h i s is my script, so you’re welcome to use any or all of it if you like. I f

the Inst ( h o u r you’ll make is what object will you use to represent

I the vortex. That will determine, more than anything else, the tone of the preI i r r i t a t i o n . With a candle, this is actually an elegant piece. In a private setting, I w i t h t h e lights down low, the atmosphere is irresistible. But you can replace

I tin candle with just about an ything— I've done this with a small pile o f salt I on the table, and it played very well. The lesson, I think, is that having a clear, I spec ific magical cause for the effect is more important than what that specific

I cause is. One thing I've played with is some sort of visual effect for the vanish o f the I last coin. I tried stealing a small piece o f flash paper from my lap right before I the false pick up of the last coin, so it would vanish in a burst of flame. This I is a terrific climax to this routine. Now that I have two young children, I don't

I keep flash paper in the house, but this is definitely worth trying. A moment like this can turn a great trick into som ething people rememb er for years. Even if you don't use my script or handling, you can probably take any vers ion of Coins Across you already know and tweak it to break the travel of each ? coin into a separate vanish and reappearance. I f you do, I think you'll like it. It creates a strong moment between the vanish and the subsequent appearance where the coin is in a sort o f limbo. Don't ru sh through that mom en t— it can create a powerful atmosphere o f mystery i f you let it breathe.

References “The Vortex'' appeared in AM/PM, Tom Cutts's underground magazine on presentation. Geoff Latta's “Ultimate Han Ping Chien” and “Thumb Touch Coins Across" appeared in CoinMagic by Richard Kaufman, Kaufman and Greenberg, 1982.

Screenplays are structure.

William Goldman SCRIPTING MAGIC | 19

Torn and Restored Card

L

ike the last script, this doesn't add a story of any kin d— it’s entirely narrative. (Don’t worry — the Jacks will be detectives soon enough.)

All you talk about is what you're doing. Despite that it is really pretty good at the three most important things a script can be good at:

drawing the audience in, dramatizing the magic, and finally, covering the method. So I think this is a good example of the benefits you can get from scripting, even if all you do is talk about what you're doing. This script doesn't, strictly speaking, narrate what you do. It comments on what you are doing, which is subtly different. This avoids most o f the prob lems of narrative patter.

It’ll Be A Miracle By Pete McCabe Int— Home—Evening Pete sits at the table with Alex. Pete What does it take to make a miracle? Sometimes the simplest thing can become a miracle if the situation is right. Let me show you my favorite example of that. Pete takes a deck of cards and begins running through them. Pete For this, I need you to sign a card... Pete pulls out the Four of Hearts. Pete This is good. Pete draws a circle on the card, then hands the card and a Sharpie to Alex. Pete Draw your initials inside that circle. Alex initials the card while Pete puts the rest of the deck aside. Pete Thanks. Here’s wh at ’s going to ha pp en. Pete picks up the card case in his left hand. He takes Alex’s signed card in his right hand. Pete I am going to insert... your signed Four of Hearts... into the cardcase. Pete puts the card in the case.


Pete Take it out...

Pete removes the card f r o m the case. Pete ...and it'll be a miracle. Pause. Pete Now, this is a pretty sim ple thing. Put the Four of Hearts in the cardcase... Pete puts the card in t h e case. Pete ...take ito u t . . . Pete remov es the card fr o m the case. Pete How can th a t be a miracle? What could make that s i m p le thin g into a miracle? Pause. Pete I’ll showyou. Pete table s the cardcase and slowly tear s the card into four pieces. He picks up the c ard ca se and opens it dramatically. Pete Put the signed card... inside the box. Pete dro ps each piece o f the to rn card, one at a time, into the box. Pete Take it out... Pete opens the casean d draws ou t an intact playing card.

Pete

...a nd... He slowly tu rn s the ca rd to th e a udien ce — it’s the sign ed Four of Hearts. Pete ...It’s a miracle.

I he End


Notes on It'll Be A Miracle This trick, called “Torn and Reboxed,” appeared in my One Man Parade in the May 2002 Linking Ring. You’ll need an Angel Case, a Paul Harris creation. I asked Paul if I could tell you how to make one and he said it’s cool.

Angel Case You’re going to add an extra wall to your cardcase, held in place by the cel lophane wrapper. Open a new deck and leave the cellophane on. Then take a duplicate case and cut out the front (thumb notch) side— the side that shows the back design. Trim this so it fits under the cellophane on the original case, with the edge o f the fake lining up with the edge o f the cellophane. You can now hide someth ing thin un der this flap, then show the case em p ty. And when you’re not using it, it’s just your cardcase.

Method This is an easy trick to learn — there’s only one m ove— and it’s really ter rifically clean. To setup, take your deck and put the Four of Hearts third from the bottom, then case the deck. Take a duplicate Fou r o f Hearts, draw a circle in the center, and draw in your initials. If you know the person you’ll be performing for, write their initials. Th en slide this card un der the cellophane on the back (flap) side of the case, with the back out. The audience will not notice that your case shows a back design on both sides. For ten years I kept an extra card in my cardcase loaded in just this way, every single time I did magic. This includes countless hours with m agician friends, not one o f whom ever noticed. In performance, take the deck out o f the case and run through it, as i f look ing for a good card for this trick, and remove the Four of Hearts. A force is wasted dead time here— since the card is signed, it makes no difference if it was selected or not. Draw a circle on the selection and have Alex initial it. Take the card in your right hand, and pick up the case in your left. Hold the case so the flap end is to your right, and the thumb-notch side is facing up. Insert the signed Four of Hearts, face up, into the box. Pause as per the script, then remove the card, taking it with the right thumb on the face and the fingers underneath. Put it back in, continuing with the script, and remove it again. But this time, you’re going to leave the signed card in the box and secretly pull the duplicate from underneath. Your thumb touches the face of the card, and underneath the box, your right fingers contact the duplicate. Look up at Alex and deliver the line (“...remove it...”); as Alex looks up at you, your hands tilt toward you just


a little, and you draw the extra card from under the plastic. The audience sees you remove a Four o f Hearts with a circle and initials on it, and as soon as the duplicate is clear, lift it up, which brings the back to the audience. This is not hard to do if you practice in a mirror to get the timing right. If you do twenty reps you’ll have the basic idea. It’s also covered by strong psychological cover; you’re doing the exact same thing you just did seconds before; it wasn ’t interesting then and it’s less so now. Just m ake sure that when you rem ove the card fairly the first time, you match the action o f the switch. On to the miracle. Tear the card in h al f and ha lf again. Now you can show both sides of all pieces freely; no one can tell that the initials don’t match the original. Pick up the box, and this time hold it vertical in your left hand. The right hand draws back the flap as the left first finger pushes against the thumb-notch o f the cardcase, opening the false wall. Drop the four pieces in, and close the flap, which locks the false wall in place. Pause. Th is pause is 25% o f the trick. Open the case and pour the restored, signed card on the table. Drop the cardcase in your pocket. The m ost important part o f this trick is your attitude. W hen you first put the card in the case and remove it, you do it carefully and with full attention. The second time you ’re just demonstrating while you repeat yourself, so you don’t pay much attention; all your attention is on your audience. The third time you are careful again, but it’s too late — the move is done.

Adaptation The “third time will be a miracle” hook can be adapted to a slew of tricks. It gives you a terrific motivation to do the exact same thing twice, while ensur ing that people will pay attention to the first time, when it’s fair, then not pay attention the second time, when it’s not.

References The Angel Case is in The Art o f Astonishment, Book 2 by Paul Harris, A-1 Multimedia, 19 96 . Torn and Reboxed first appeared in The Linking Ring, May, 2002.

The Invisible Deck

W

hat most magician s— and I — call the Invisible Deck is ac tually the Ultra Mental Deck, which was invented by Joe Berg. It is a simple variation of Brainwave, which was popu larize d— and maybe even invented— by Dai Vernon. Eddie

Fields applied the Invisible Deck presentation to the Ultra Mental deck; this combination was popularized by Don Alan, so much so that the trick itself is known by the name o f its presentation. Perhaps because the trick itself is so perfect, there is not as much variety in its presentation as you might expect from a trick done by every magician in the world. Don Alan's “classic” script is so good that apparently everybody decided to just do it pretty much verbatim. I wonder how many magicians who say that they don’t like to script their magic actually pe rform Don’s script for this trick. The first choice most presentations of this trick address is the specific ef fect. Did you reverse a card in advance as a prediction o f what card the specta tor would name? Did you magically reverse a card after the spectator named it? Did the spectator divine the one card you had randomly reversed? A spe cific effect is necessary to turn the trick into something personal. That’s what makes people remember the trick years later. Here are three different scripts you can use with an Ultra Mental Deck, each quite different. The first script that follow s— called “It’s the Future” — is de signed not for comedy, but to magnify the spectator’s sensation that they have witnessed som ething deeply impossible. Th e second script is called “ Super Power” and is a piece of mentalism for kids, in which the kids demonstrate a power they don’t know they have. Th is is always a powerful presentation strat egy, but is virtually necessary if you want to perform mentalism for kids. The third script uses a trick I call “Flight Suit” to create a different, physically im possible effect in which a freely selected card, untouched by the magician , van ishes from the spectator’s hands and flies to the deck. It’s a great trick— dead easy, utterly clean, suprem ely m ag ical— but more important than the trick is the presentation. It gives the audience a priceless sense that they are seeing something special, and you can easily adapt it to any trick you already do. Because “ It’s the Future” uses equivoque, there are a couple o f places where the script breaks into two sections side-by-side, depending on the spectator’s answer. It’s worth noting how the two different answers are brought back to the same point in the script.


It’s the Future by Pete McCabe Ini

-Living Room—Evening

Pete sits at the table, across from Alex. Pete Did you ever see something, in your imagination, before it happened? It’s not your imagination, it’s the future. I was watching a football game, this is twenty years ago, Giants against the Lions. Fourth quarter, tie score, suddenly I could see, in my imagination, Lawrence Taylor running back an interception fo r a touchdown. Next play, Lawrence Taylor runs back an interception 97 yards for a touchdown. It’s not your imagination, it’s the future. Pete removes the deck from the cardcase. Pete I have spent many hours trying to do that again, b ut a lot of it is beg in ne r’s luck. That’s why I need you—you’re a beginner. Pete takes the four Kings and arranges them, beneath the table, into a small packet, which he places face down in front of Alex. Pete Please don’t touch these cards—it would compromise the experiment. I can tell you they are the four Kings, and I’ll show them to you soon. The rest of the deck is placed aside. Pete For now, I’d like you to imagine four Kings floating in the air in front of you. These are the black Kings, Clubs and Spades. Pete holds the imaginary pair of black cards in his right hand.


Fete

These are red, Hearts and Diamonds. Pete holds up the imaginary red cards in his left hand.

Pete Black... and red. Yes? Alex Yes. Pete Good. Thank you. Now, I want you to imagine one p air —either color— slowly floating down onto the table. Alex watches the imaginary cards float down to the table. Pete Which pair floated down? Alex Red. Pete smiles—maybe a little impressed. Pete Good. Now... Pete looks at the tabletop. Pete Here on the table are two red Kings. Imagine them—the Heart, the Diamond. Put the black ones over there. Just look at the red Kings.

Alex Black. Pete sm iles —maybe a little impressed. Pete Good. Now... Pete leans in close toAlex. Pete In front of your eyes are two red Kings. Imagine th em —the Heart, the Diamond. Put the black ones over there. Just look at the red Kings.

With his h ands, Pete indic ates two separate imaginary cards.

Pete

Imagine you take away the King of Hearts or the King of Diamonds. (pause) Which was it? Alex King of Hearts.

Alex King of Diamonds.

Pete Take the King of Hearts—good. Imagine the King of Hearts, in your hand. Put the Diamond away—put it on the black Kings.

Pete (With a wave) Away the King of Diamonds. Put it on the black Kings.

Alex puts the King of Diamonds on the black kings. Pete Now the King of He arts is in fr ont of you. Turn it face down, and put it on the other Kings. Tell me when you can imagine it. Pete waits for Alex to see it. Alex Got it. Pete You didn’t see the way I set up the cards, right? Alex Right. Pete You just imagined the black Kings, face up on the bottom, the King of Diamonds on top of them, and the King of Hearts, face down, on top of tha t. But it’s not yo ur imagination. It’s the future.


Fete cleanly spreads the packet of cards; they exactly match Alex’s imagination. Pete Here they are; the two black Kings, then the King of Diamonds on top of them, and on top, one card face down... The King of Hearts. Pete turns up the face down card. The King of Hearts. Pete All right, now the more you do this, the less of a beginner you are, so we’re gonna cut right to the big finish. Imagine an entire deck of cards—I want you to see them in the air, in a fan, right in front of my face. Pete makes a framing gesture around his face with his hands. Pete They’re all facing you, you can see them all. But one card is face down. Tell me when you see a face-down card. Alex Got it. Pete Good. Now see that card turning to face you. What card is it? Alex The Ten of Spades. Pete You can see all the cards facing you, and one facing away. Pete picks up the deck and begins to spread the deck in front of Alex’s face. All the cards are face up.


Pete

All facing you but one, just like in your imagination. A face down card appears in the spread. Pete removes this card

and holds it up. Pete Except... it’s not your imagination. It’s the future. He turns it to Alex. It’s the Ten of Spades.

The End


Notes on It's the Future Much mentalism is presented as a demonstration of a power the magician has, which the audience doesn’t understand. This goes the other way, present ing a power the audience has, which they themselves don’t understand. Giv ing the audience power is always a good way to get them involved. This is a good example o f what can happen when two tricks are combined into one presentation. The routine builds in impossibility to great effect, and the meth ods— equivoque and rough-and-smooth— cancel either other per fectly.

Method I tried to make the equivoque section seem more impossible by expanding the result. So instead of me predicting the King of Hearts, I seem to predict the order of all four Kings, plus the reversed card. This is built into the equi voque proce ss— all you have to do is point it out in your script. I also like to have the spectators imagine a physical proces s— they’re not just making choices, they’re moving cards around, putting them on the table, etc. I feel this helps hide the forcing aspects o f the procedure.

Setup Go to any magic store and buy an Invisible Deck. Take the Ultra Mental Deck they sell you and remove the Kings. Separate the deck into odds and evens (Jacks are odd, Queens are even) and put them in back-to-back pairs, with all the odd cards facing one way and the evens the other. Hold the deck with the odd cards facing up and insert the Kings face up at random locations (don’t put them between two back-to-back cards). Put the deck in the cardcase so when you open it, the odd cards and Kings will be face up.

Performance Begin by uncasing the deck. Put the cardcase to your left side o f your per form ing surface. Remove the Kings, then put the deck on top of the cardcase. This is imp ortant— you have to put the deck on top o f the cardcase every time you do this trick. Take the Kings below the table and arrange them, top down: face down King o f Hearts, face up King o f Diamonds, face up black Kings. Table this packet. In the first selection, Alex puts two Kings on the table. I f Alex puts the black ones, you follow up by saying “put them aside,” as i f that were what you meant all along. I f Alex picks the red Kings, the black Kings are put aside, to get them out o f the way. Either way the black Kings end up on the table to the side.


Diamonds is eliminated with the standard request that the spectator “take away” one card. If it's the heart, you emphasize that Alex took it. If it’s the dia mond, you emphasize that Alex took it away. After the four Kings phase, Alex will name any card. At this point, there’ s a 50% chance you will have to secretly reverse the deck. Here’s how: As you are saying “You can see all the cards facing you, and one facing away,” your palm down left hand picks up both the deck and the card box from above, and turns palm up, which brings the box to the top. Casually put the box aside with your right hand. This is completely natural; it’s actually easier to pick up the deck and re verse it than it is to pick it up w ithout reversin g it (the sam e goes for putting it down). Plus the script at that point keeps Alex focused on the mental picture. Raise the deck to eye level and spread the cards. This is, from a presenta tional perspective, much better than spreading the cards at table level, with people looking at them from above. It makes it much easier for people to see what is happening, and keeps your face in the frame. Technically it’s better as well, as you can just spread until you find the named card, without having to use some system to remember which card it’s paired with.

Adaptation The story about Lawrence Taylor is true. Thanksgiving day, 1982 : 1 saw the play in my mind, and then it happened, exactly the same. Now, I’ve seen other plays in my mind, and they didn’t happen. But I don’t talk about those in the script. You can pick a true story or make one up. Whichever you feel comfortable with. You don’t actually need a story; you could just ask your audience i f this has happened to them. It’s happened to almost everybody, so you shouldn’t have a problem. But you should still be prepared with a story of your own, because it’s easier for the spectators to respond to your story than to put one forward themselves.

References If you want a comedy presentation for this trick, you can learn Don Alan’ s script by reading Jon Racherbaumer’s book In a Class by Himself, or by watch ing just about any half-decent magician. While you’re at it, think about how good a script Eddie Fields wrote that the name o f his presentation actually took over the name of the trick.


Super Powers by Pete McCabe Int—Living Room—Day Pete is surrounded by a group of kids. He looks at one kid named Alex. Pete Alex, do you have any super powers? Alex No. Pete Do you know anybody who has super powers ? Alex Superman. Pete Superman, and Spider-Man too. I think you have super powers, you just don’t know it. I think you can magically read my mind. Do you want to try? Alex Yes. Pete removes a deck of cards and begins spreading them between his hands. Pete These cards all have different names on them. Here’s Monty, Pattie, Robby, Chris, Lucy, Mary... Alex, here’s a card with your name on it. As Pete spreads the cards, one card is face down.


Pete

And loo k— th er e’s ju s t one name th at’s face down. Does anybody know what name this is? No one knows. Pete No one kn ow s but me. The only way yo u could know is if you could read my mind. Pete turns the card face up: it says “Pete.” Pete This is my name: Pete. Alex, in a minute I’m going to think of one of these names and you’re going to read my mind? It’s gonna be one of these, but don’t say your own name, that’s too obvious. Okay? Now, nobody look. That would be cheating. Pete turns his back on the children and begins looking through the deck fast. Pete (Fast) Let’s see, hmm, no, not that one, no, nope, maybe, no, no no no—hey! Don’t look! Pete peeks over his shoulder suspiciously, trying to catch the kids spying on him. Pete Tha t’s better. (Even faster) Hmm, no, d on ’t think so, maybe, no, not that one, this one? Okay. Pete turns back to face the kids. Pete All right, Alex. Put your hands like this... Pete dramatically puts his hand to his forehead. Alex does the same.


Pete

Now, tell me what na me I turned over. Alex Joe. Pete Let’s see if you have read my mind. Pete spreads the cards until he comes to the one reversed card. Pete If this says Joe, you definitely have super po wers . Pete shows the card; it says “Joe.” Pete It says Joe! Let’s he ar it for Alex the m ind reader!

The End


Notes on Super Powers The script for this trick probably seems like nothing. And it certainly is very simple. You could probably improvise this pretty easily. But there are a few things working in it that you might not get if you didn’t at least think about it in advance. The first is at the beginning where you spread the deck and find your own name reversed. This helps communicate the basic idea o f isolating a card by it being the one card reversed in the deck, which is neither a familiar nor obvi ous concept to most kids. The “preview” o f the effect really makes the magic easier to appreciate— it helps the kids understand that it’s impossible to know what card it was. Don’t forget the line where you make it clear that the kid couldn’t possibly know which card it is, which takes the sting out of their not being able to answer your question. And don’t leave out the line where you remind Alex to pick a name that’s in the deck.

Method First, you have to make the props. Start with two blank-faced decks. Take one and write, with a thick Sharpie, a different name on each card. One of the cards must have your name, and the others should be the 51 most common kids names that you might encounter in your audience. Write in such a way that you can read the name while spreading through the deck— you might want to put the name across the card in large letters, and repeat the name smaller where the index goes. Use colored markers, because this is a kids trick, and i f you like, decorate the cards with stars, hearts, circles, etc. Now write the same names on the other deck. Take one deck and rough the backs. Put the cards in pairs, back to back, so that all the names from A-L (or whatever separation gives you 26 names in each half) are facing one way and the M -Z names are facing the other. You now have a deck that can reveal any o f the names as the only one reversed. Put this deck in your inside jacket pocket (or shirt pocket). Take the ungaffed deck, reverse the card that has your name, and put it in the cardcase.

Performance I usually interact more with the kids than is shown in the script. If Alex can’t think of anybody with super powers, I suggest Superman, Spiderman, etc. If Alex does claim magic powers, I ask what power, etc. That sort o f thing. Introduce the cased deck, spread it, and find the card with your name re versed. Now you’re going to turn around and ostensibly reverse one card, but

SCRIPTING MAGIC

in reality you switch in the gaffed deck. This is the easiest deck switch you'll ever do; the script motivates you to turn around and secretly manipulate the deck in such a way that nobody can see what you are doing. While this is going on, you are switching between talking a mile a minute and pretending to catch them spying on you, both o f which are hilarious to the kids. The most important part of this trick is the section where the kid pretends to read your mind. I f you choose a good kid, this will be hilarious. Don't rush through it. Magicians have a tendency to rush through anything that isn't the method. This is always bad, but ten times worse when you're performing for kids. The kid reading your mind is the show.

Adaptation The biggest choice you'll have to make is how slapstick you want to make this, which will probably depend on the age of your audience. The beauty of it is, even older kids who think your antics are lame will still be blown away by the trick. Smart kids may well guess that the reversed card has your nam e on it. I f so, congratulate them, and when you do the repeat, add something to the effect that you're going to pick a random name, which is much harder, etc. I have toyed with changing the effect to one where Alex mentally forces me to turn over a given card. Kids are, if anything, even more enthralled by the idea of forcing adults to do their bidding.

References The United States Social Security Administration website will gladly tell you the most popular baby names for any year since 1880 . www.ssa.gov/OACT/babynames/ It's not necessary that your names be currently popular, and in California, it's virtually impossible, since it is a quintessentially California thing to give your baby a name or variant spelling no one has ever heard o f before. But it is desirable that they be familiar to your audience. It helps to put in the first nam es of famou s people, celebrities, athletes, etc. You'd be surprised how these references will help the kids engage with the trick.

My Tribute to Vernon by Pete McCabe Int

Magic Castle— Night

Pete sits at a table in the main bar of the Magic Castle, across

from Alex. Pete Twenty-three years ago, in this very room, Dai Vernon did a trick for me. There was no big presentation—he told me what to do and I did it myself. But I remember very clearly how de eply impossible it was, because he did n’t to uch the cards. I know many magicians consider Dai Vernon the greatest sleight-of-hand artist who ever lived. But he didn’t touch the cards! Pete removes the cardcase and place it on the table. Pete And so, having practiced magic as a hobby for twenty years, I wanted to learn that trick—so my audiences could feel the same thing I did. It wasn’t in any of his books, so I asked some magicians who knew Vernon. And it turned out... no one ever saw him do that trick. Pete removes the cards from the case and places them face up on the table. Pete It must have been a new trick he was working on, and he died not long after. I may be the only person who ever saw this trick. I would like to perform it for you. Pete looks through the deck and removes the Hearts, placing them aside.

Pete

I never found out how Dai Vernon did it, so this may not be the exact same trick he did for me. But this is my tribute to Dai Vernon. Pete places the deck aside and spreads the Hearts on the table. Pete I’d like you to select any one of these Hearts. Mix them if you want. Pick one up. Alex picks up the Seven of Hearts. Pete Make the rest into a neat stack, if you would. I’d do it but I don’t want to touch the cards. Dai Vernon didn’t touch the cards, and neither will I. Alex squares up the rest of the cards. Pete Now lift up about ha lf the stack, turn your card face down, and stick it back in the stack. Alex buries the Seven of Hearts face down in the stack of face up cards. Pete Thank you. What you just did is exactly what I did, 23 years ago. This is what Dai Vernon did. Pete waves his hands over the packet of Hearts, then over the rest of the deck. Pete Actually, he was holding a cigar, but other than that, that’s it. You picked the Seven of Hearts, and put it back yourself. All Dai Vernon did was wave his hands, and look! Pete picks up the Hearts and counts them to the table.


Pete

One two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve. And the Seven of Hearts is gone! (Pause) Where’d it go?

Pete spreads the deck: one card is reversed. Pete shows it to the

audience.

It's the Seven of Hearts.

Pete And that is my tribute to Dai Vernon.

The End


Notes on My Tribute to Vernon This is a great ex am ple o f a script that uses “ narrative ” patter and turns it into something more th an a simple narrated trick. This presentation grabs the audience’s attention, and enhances their sense that they are se ein g som ething sp ec ia l-w ith o u t any “s to ry ” being applied to the trick. Th e introduction com municates how im po rta nt magic is to you, how seriously you take it, and how hard you work for the audience’s enjoyment. These are incredibly powerful messages. By the way, I never m et Vernon. It’s plausible, but I made it up.

Method This is a handling I wo rke d up a few years ago. The fi rs tdraft was two Ultra Mental decks, any card vanishes from one deck and appears reversed in the other. In creating A Tribute to Vernon, I figured Vernon would streamline the trick to one deck, which inspired this final version of the trick, which I call Flight Suit. Just another way scripting can lead to improvements in the trick itself, and vice versa.

Setup You need two complete Heart suits and 26 random non-hearts, all roughed on the back. If you don’t have a bottle o f roughing fluid and can’t rememb er that it’s just Tester’s Dull Cote, or maybe you just prefer to support your local magic shop, buy two Ultra Mental decks and take the pairs apart. Take a complete Heart suit, in order, and put each one back to back with a random non-Heart card. Hold this ha lf deck w ith the Hearts face up, and put h alf the remaining non-Hearts face down on top. Now put the rest o f the nonHearts face down beneath. You now have a 39-card Ultra Mental deck can reveal any Heart as the only reversed card. Turn this mini-deck so the non-Hearts are f ace up and distribute the other Heart suit, face up, through the deck. Case the deck and write Flight Suit in pencil on the box. No one will ever see it.

Performance At the be ginn ing o f the trick, when you sp read this deck to rem ove the Hearts, you will see 39 faceup cards, 13 H ea rts and 26 non-Hearts; the 13 face-down Hearts don’t show. Believe it or not , this is the hardest mom ent in the trick, because you want to spread the cards confidently and casually, with enough force to show all the face-up cards, bu t without separating any o f the roughed pairs. What I ’m saying is, you m ig h t not think to practice spreading


through a deck and removing the Hearts, but for this trick you really should. Put the rest of the deck down on the table, somewhere the spectators won’t grab for it. If you’re standing, put it near your crotch. Nobody will grab a prop if they have to reach for your crotch to get it. The vanish of the selected heart happens automatically. When you count the packet, the face down selection clings to the face up card above it. This idea is very, very old, and has been subtly used by many clever m agicians. I am sure

Vernon could have come up with this idea, given his early experimentation with rough-and-smooth. Now pick up the rest of the deck and spread them at eye level, faces toward the audience. The hidden Hearts are visible to you, so when you get to the selected card you just separate it from its back-to-back partner, in classic Ultra Mental deck fashion.

Adaptation I believe that any magician can use this basic presentational structure and hook with any trick, from the smallest close-up miracle to the largest stage ililusion. It can be played by any perform er at any age, working in any style. And it can make almost any presentation better, more interesting, more special, and more magical. You don’t really have to write a script and mem orize it — you can just pick any magician you’d like to pay tribute to, and improvise o ff the basic idea. And you don’t have to pick a m ag ician— it can be your grandpa who did one trick for you every year on Christmas eve, and you decided to track it down, and none o f your m agician friends had any idea how it could be done, and maybe your grandpa invented one sublime trick, and you’re going to keep it alive. You can also change the story with each venue you perform. You don’t ac tually have to use a magician whose life overlapped with yours. You can say that Houdini was famous for performing this trick, and you’ve read detailed reports of the exact effect written up by the best magicians of the day, who were com pletely fooled, etc. And now, as a tribute to his memory, you’re going to perform this effect, exactly as you’ve been able to recreate it.

Eugene Burger and John Lovick: A Theatrical Endeavor

E

ugene Burger needs no introduction to anyo ne interested in the the atrical presentation of magic. He's a wonderful thinker and writer, and one of the most successful close-up magicians in the world.

Several outstanding books and DVDs show the depth and quality of Eugene’s thinking on all things magical. John Lovick probably doesn’t need an intro duction. He’s written articles and books, including SWITCH , is an associate editor at M AGIC m agazine, created “The Reparation,” gives a great lecture, and his alter ego Handsome Jack is a star at the Magic Castle. So, no introduction. Both of these gentlem en are experts in scripting magic. I interviewed them together to see how their approaches to scripting agree and differ.

Pete First question is do you script ev ery effect, or just some? Eugene I script everything. Jo hn Everything, I sit down and write out wha t I’m go ing to say. W ell— I do a few effects where I’ve worked out the script in rehearsal and performance. But every word is eventually written down. Pete Did you always? What made you start? Eugene When I beca me a professio n al m a gician. And I re a liz ed — I had to take this thing seriously. Jo hn I’ve always scripted everything. I’ve worked in theater basically


all my adult life. I worked in the theater before I worked as a ma gician, so using scripts is what I know, and that’s how I’m comfort able. Pete What is th e big gest benefit you ge t from scripting your effects? Eugene Well, it allo w s you to pause. (pause) An d it allo w s you to build in pau s es. And it allows you to ask rather interesting questions. Years ago I did a lecture at the Magic Castle, on timing. And about 20 minutes into it a little light went on in my head, and I said "Eugene , y o u ’re an idiot. These people have nothing to time!” So I taught four card tricks, everybody was happy. Pete and John laugh.

Eugene

If you have a sentence, you can a s k some fascinating questions, l ike what word ge ts punch ed in that sentence? Is there a pause In the sentence? Where does it g o ? How long is it? What is yo ur face doing during this pause? But If y ou’re just ad-libbing, doing it different ev ery time, none o f these questions are meaningful. Pete And to have a pause , an d to le ar n how long the pause is going to be, and where it goes, you need a script. Eugene Yes, because most m agicia ns are jabbering. T h ey’re ta lk in g en d lessly, too much, too fast. And therefore, the whole thing gets trivialized. It’s pauses that make things serious. If you want to do a long pause, you could get an audi ence to be really quiet and right with you. But if y o u ’re ju st ja b b er ing all the time, they start looking at their watches. Because what’s going on isn’t important. Pete One reason I dislike the word pat ter so much is that sense of con stant, nonstop, not really impor tant, noise. Eugene It’s called Gesprache, idle chatter. Speech where nothing is revealed. John One huge advantage of scripting is that it helps you improve with

every show. Even if you don’t record your show—which you shou ld do — if yo u have it scr ipt  ed, at least you can go back and remember the performance, what work ed an d what did n’t, because you kn ow what you sa id. But if it’s all off the top of your head, you w on’t re m em ber a lot of it. So you can’t remember what worked and what did n’t. Having a scr ip t help s you ge t better fo r your next per formance, because it helps you evaluate how good you were at this one. Pete So, have you noticed that the ben efits you get from scripting have changed over time? Do you get different benefits now than when you were ju st sta rting out? Eugene The benefit you get over time is recognition. I’m going to Austra lia tomorrow. Part of excellence is understanding that magic is a the atrical endeavor. If we’re not go ing to put all of our energy behind that, we’re just going to be medio cre magicians. But if you’re willing to put some energy into some thing, some work, and thought, then you can excel. And you get to go to nice places on other people’s money. Pete Jo hn, have you notice d the sa me benefits, perhaps not as a famous performer like Eugene. Jo hn I have my own cult following.


Eugene laughs. Pete I'm a member of the Handsome Jack Fan Club. But do you get more out of scripting now than when you wrote your first sc rip t?

want to com m unica te, and ge t the trick and a script from there?

Eugene It’s always different. Sometimes I start with a trick, and then I try to w rite a script fo r it. Other times I start with just a line. I had the Jo hn line “Highlights in the History of The first complete routine I ever Christianity... told with a deck of put together was the Linking cards” in my wallet for 9 years be Rings. I spent six months on it be fore I realized I could attach that fore I was even to Card Warp, w illing to do it which I’d been It's called Gesprache: for the magic 15 doing for club. I think it’s idle chatter. Speech where years. Now, be a beautiful trick cause it’s script nothing is revealed. and it’s one of ed, I can dial it the few tricks in down, if I want. magic where the secret is beautiful For instance, “Highlights in the as well. So I studied everything, I History of Religion... told with a researched 3 -ring routines, 6-ring deck of cards.” So we don’t put all routines, 4 -ring routines, 5-ring the emphasis on Christianity. On routines, 8-ring routines, and fi the other hand, when I did this on nally decided the perfect number the Paul Daniels show in England, I of rings was 5 . And then I worked did “Highlights in World History... on finding something to say that with a deck o f card s,” not ev en w as en te rtain in g, id eally relevan t. opening the religious box. A fter six m onth s I showed it to the magic club, and it got a much bet When you have a sc rip t, th ese ter response than anything else kinds of options are open to I’d ever done. So, if I didn’t know you. Bec au se I th ink the game of the value of scripting before that, the magician is to create clever I certainly learned it then. And it’s mousetraps. And you need to a lesson that keeps getting rein know what your audience will re forced, year after year. spond to. To do “Highlights in the History of Christianity” on nation Pete al television in England is getting Where do you st art? Do you take a half the people irritated with you trick that appeals to you and de before you’ve started. But if you velo p a script fo r it, do yo u start don’t have a sense of what you’re with a sc ript, an d figure out the doing, you’re adrift. That’s one technical details afterwards, or thing scripting has always done do you start with an idea that you for m e— it gives me the track. And


yo u can go off the trac k if y o u ’re feeling particularly clever today. But you know, some days I don’t feel clever. I feel really dull. And so I ju st stay on script.

to get better, by letting you get closer and closer to your goal. Eugene At the end o f the ev enin g, if I’m not completely satisfied with the response I got, and I’ve just been ad-libbing this whole thing, then what do I do? Do I even kn ow what I want to change? No! See, I believe in audiotaping.

Jo hn Paying attention to how the audi ence responds is very important. When I st arte d to pu t togeth er an act, Handsome Jack was about as far away from what I was trying to Pete accomplish as could be. I thought 1 wanted to do a certain kind of As opposed to vid eota pin g? act, with this kind of magic, and Eugene this kind of character, and I was I’d like both, but the problem with heading off in this direction. And I would do my sh ow s, and certain vid eota pin g is I can get ca ught up in the pictures and miss the story. things would work, so I would add I want my show more of that. to be interesting Before I knew it I f all you're doing is even if all you I was heading East instead of telling theperson something heard was what I said. So when West, and at the they can see for themselves I add the visual end of the year why should they experience of I was H andsom e the magic, it’s Ja ck — the exact listen toyou? going to be re opposite of what ally good. But if I set out to be. If you’d told me at the start that it’s not interesting on a verbal lev I was g oin g to be the male m ode l el to begin with, there’s no base. magician, I would have said you There’s no solid foundation to the house. were in sane. Now, because I paid attention to what the audience Jo hn was tellin g me, I’ve im pro ved to the point where I perform regu Audio ta pe y o u rse lf perform in g, larly at the Castle, and I’m invited w heth er it’s a fo rm al show , or ju st a trick for your brother. Then tran  to perform at conventions. scribe the tape, and read it. And ask yo urs elf, if I was not doing any Pete David Regal said in Close-up and magic, and I was just saying this Personal that scripting lets you as a monologue, how worthy is this of putting in front of people? decide what response you hope to get, so you can see if you get it or The thing about art, whether it’s not. Having a goal shows you how fine art or performing art, you’re

,


trying to communicate an idea or tell a story. Ideally it’s an interest ing idea or compelling story. A lot of magicians are not really trying to communicate an idea or a story, they’re just presenting an effect. Scripting lets you add another ele ment, another layer, to the effect. It gives you something to com municate. It gives you a reason to be showing somebody the effect, above and beyond “look what I can do.” A script allows you to have a goal other than fooling a person, which is only so in te re stin g. Pete I want to go on to character. I wro te out a te rrib le questio n ab ou t character, so I’d like you to imag ine that I just asked a really good question about character, and just answ er that. Jo hn When I talk about ch arac ter, ev eryone says “Well, you perform as Handsome Jack. I just do tricks for my friends.” All the same rules apply, whether you’re performing as a character, or as yourself for friends. Consistency, naturalness, staying in character, they all ap ply. Even if you’re playing your self, you have to know what kind of person you are. You still have to choose tricks and a presentation style that fits you. Pete Eugene, you perform more or less as yourself. How do you infuse you r chara cter in to a scrip t— or does it happen automatically be cause it’s you doing the writing?


Eugene I’ve always thought that you have two choices: the potter or the sculptor. The potter works by building up, and the sculptor w orks by chip pin g aw ay. I’ve al w ays work ed on chara cte r d evel opment as a sculptor. What I’m trying to do is uncover the person that I already am, not to create a new person. Now, the person I al ready am I will amplify, and try to enhance some of my gifts, and de crease some of my deficits. Pete Jo hn, from your descrip tio n of the way you developed Handsome Ja ck, it so unds lik e you were more of a potter. Jo hn That’s true. A lot of the humor in my personal life was self depre cating. And that’s the direction I started when I set out to create an act, beca use that’s who I am. H and some Jack is the exact opposite of that. It doesn’t feel so much like a deep part of me was revealed, it feels like something was created. It was a very surprising process. Pete Okay, process. In the real world, do you sit down and write out a script, then rehearse it, or do you improvise first, then write it down, or... Eugene First of all, I believe all good writ ing is rewriting. That’s my prem ise. So, the first thing I want to do is get something down on paper.

Pete And then I want to go away fo r a So John, your process? few days, and leave it alone, and then come back to it, with maybe Jo hn fresh eyes. After I come back to It, I try tell the same story with as The point at which I sit down and few words as possible. I’m really actually write it out varies. Some into economy of words. Because times when I get an idea it’s a fullthat gives you time for pauses. formed idea and it seems to write And som eti m es the mag ic hap itself. But if it’s just a vague idea, pens in the pauses. I wrote an ar and I don’t know enough about it ticle on my website called “Editing to write it down I’ll go through it in Scripts.” In this article, there are my living room, and basically im two scripts for the Bob Neale trick pro vise it. And after going through 13 at Dinner”; an earlier draft it a few times, I have a better idea and a later one. And if you look w hat’s goin g on, an d then I’ll sit down and write the script. at them side-by-side, you could see the air that was taken out. Eugene I’m really committed to economy of words. And I think that’s really And som eti m es you don’t write it a reaction to the kind of magic I out, do you? I was just thinking of the Voodoo Poker routine I do in see so often, which is just these the show with Max and Tina. I’ve people talking too much. never written that script out, and If you were to say to me, how can yet it is ab solu tely word fo r word the average magician improve every show. Now the first time I did it, I had a name for the doll, their work, well, real simple: don’t and it just went in all these differ talk so much, and slow down. ent directions. And it was getting laughs, but one of my primary in Pete I think a lot of peop le sp eed up b e tuitions is that not all laughs are cause they’re nervous, and they’re good laughs. nervous because they don’t know Jo hn wha t th ey’re do in g, esp ecially if they’re making up what they say That’s true. An audience can laugh throughout an entire show, and as they go. still be very unsatisfied. Jo hn Eugene And th ey’ve se en the trick befo re, and forget the audience hasn’t. To Exactly. And so I just pulled back. the audience it’s all new. It takes I didn’t give the doll a name; it time to process all the informa w asn ’t goin g anyw here, it was ju st tion—to look at something, see a stupid cheap laugh. It wasn’t what it is, se e the mag ic effect, moving the game along, I’m trying to get to that Amsterdam joke. If then react to it. you ge t to perfo rm a lot, the a c


tual writing it down isn’t quite as crucial, because you’re doing it every night, so you can tweak it that way. Particularly because my scripts tend not to be very long. If I have these endless amounts of word s, where do I ju m p in? Pete What attracted you to the G ypsy Thread?

Pete Those are the best ones. Eugene “The Human Thread,” which I did in the show with Max and Tina, is ba sed on a scrip t t h at Max and I wro te fo r the Shakespeare show. But most of the time I don’t do either of those. The version I per form the most is silent. Because at the average corporate party Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva don’t quite work, any more than aban donment and all these existential things.

Eugene I saw it when I was about 16 years old, Fred Kaps gave a lecture in Chicago. It called to me. The origi nal presentation was about Vam pires. And the thread was broken Pete by biting it. Magicians would say to Pleasure and pain, happiness and me, “How do you bite that thread?” sorrow, intense love and tragic And I w ou ld — not gettin g it— ju st separation... say “I bite it.” And then I had all this dental work done, and I didn’t Eugene have that place in my mouth any Right. So the version I perform the more where I bit the thread. So I most goes like this: “You know, stopped doing the trick for a year. one of the things people say to And in th ose me is that I talk days I was also a great deal. The less tr iv ia l I can be, doing “Dracula And so my final and the Soror the more zeroes I can add piece of magic ity Girls,” and is done with to my paycheck. so “Vampire-like out any words. teeth” was a Well, there are a callback to this earlier effect. And few words. This is yellow cotton then one day, I was thinking: this thread. And this effect is dedicat is one of my favorite tricks, and ed to the pyromaniac deep within I haven’t done it for a year. And each of us. And I should tell you, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva just it is an example of pure sleight of ju m ped in. But th ey did n’t ju m p hand.” Now, whatever that means, in out of nowhere. They jumped who know s. But th at’s the ele va in after 15 ye ars o f studying Asian tion of it. And then I just perform philosophy. But once they were in, the trick silently. the script wrote itself. Jo hn It creates interest right at the top.

Eugene So there is a script, leading into it, but the effect is performed si lently. Pete So John, what drew you into the trick? Jo hn It's a trick I’ve always liked. And It never occurred to me to per form it, because I didn’t know what H an ds om e Ja ck would do with it. And then fo r so me re aso n I thou ght of the ph rase “She lo ve s me, she loves me... a lot.” Instead of she loves me not. Because to Handsome Jack, “she loves me not” jus t doe sn’t ex ist— how could any woman not love Handsome Ja ck ? And I th ough t to m yself, that’s funny. That’s good comedy. I had heard ab out doing the Gy ps y Thread with dental floss. And I liked the convenience of that, all in a single self-contained package, and I liked the everyday-object as pect of it. So I worked up a presen tation, where every time I’d break the thread, I’d say “She loves me, she loves me a lot.” I did it for an audience, and it turns out, “She loves me, she loves me a lot,” in deed... is no t funny. And that was the entire basis of the routine. Pete and Eugene laugh.

Jo hn So it was back to the drawing board. When I tried to fix it, I came up with a more elaborate version, which had a serie s of jo ke s in the same style, which pla ys quite well,

and the rest of it fell in place. And this raises an important point. If a joke isn’t funny, cut it! If you’ve tried it three times and haven’t gotten a laugh, take it out of the act. Pete Eugene, what lead you to create a new presentation when Cosmic Thread was so successful? Eugene A mag ic tr ick is like an opportu  nity. And you can take a simple magic trick and raise different emotions. I don’t think you have to giv e magic meaning, because I think magic is alread y m eaningful. What you have to do som etim es is get out of the way, so people can get the meaning. Pete So you don ’t ob scure it with a bla n ket of words that have no mean ing of their own, and prevent the meaning of the trick from coming through. Jo hn Some people think scripting just means elaborate story concept presentations. But scripting can be finding a few lines to drape around an effec t— not to narrate it, but to make it echo in your au dience’s mind, so they’re ready for the magic, and they experience it fully, and they remember it. Pete Jo hn, ho w did you end up w rit  ing a Gypsy Thread script for a

play that was written by someone else?

Jo hn The show is a musical about the invention of cinema in the 1890 s. I was playing the ghost of RobertHoudin, and every once in a while I would do a bit of magic related to the themes of the show, which wer e im m ortality, de ath, time, hu man achievement, invention, and art. The writers outlined in the play that Robert-Houdin would do a trick about loss here, one about time there, etc. It was my jo b to co me up with tric ks that fit. I plotted them all out, except I didn’t have anything in my rep ertoire that I thought would work for time. I looked at all these tricks with clocks, and watches, and hourglasses, and time travel, and then I thought of the Gypsy Thread, and I thought there might be a way to make it about time through the script. I thought about how some people view time as a continuous unbroken stream, and some people think of time as bro ken down into smaller pieces, and that became the contrast between the unbroken and broken thread. So this is one example where I had the idea for the script first. Usu ally the trick comes first. Pete Last question: If you could give one piece of advice to a magician getting starting in scripting their magic, what would it be?


Eugene

If yo u ’re ju st starting out, don ’t bite off more than you can chew. If you have a trick that’s mostly just ex po sition , start with that. Clean that up. So that you ’re not end lessly re peating yourself. Take your favor ite card trick, and then ask your self, line by line, is this he lping the trick, or am I just jumping up and down, not going anywhere? Writing sc rip ts is n ’t about co ming up with fantastic story scripts; it’s about im proving what you already do, and making it better magic for people, a better performance. Be cause this is a performance, and that’s theater, and very few people have the ability to ad-lib it. If you go and watch Lance Burton or Penn & Teller or Siegfried & Roy, these shows are absolutely scripted. You watc h Lance’s sh ow an d you think this is really spontaneous. But I’ve seen it a dozen times, and there are very few unscripted moments. These are scripted shows because these are shows, for god’s sake. And a sh ow is about a sc ript. Jo hn There was a discussion on the Internet recently about scripting magic, and someone said, “I don’t use a script because it interferes with m y sp onta neity.” Well, noth ing could be further from the truth. If you watch a great actor, all their work is truly spontane ous—and most actors have never performed a single word, ever, that wasn’t scripted. By definition good acting is spontaneous. The great luxury about doing a magic

trick— as opposed to a play— is that you can go off script if you want to. So the no tion that usi ng a script is limiting or confining is absolutely untrue. Eugene The other half of that advice is this: don’t let failure discourage yo u. Je ff McBrid e an d I recen tly did a program for a group of teenag ers, and afterward we asked them, "What did you learn here that you can take home and apply to your magic?” And the number one an swer was, “Give yourself permis sion to fail.”

wh at to say, an d so th ey ju st d e scribe what they’re doing. Pete It’s like when someone is giving a PowerPoint presentation, and they put up a slide with text, and then they read the text off the slide. Well, you ca n read to y o u rse lf much faster than the person can read out loud. So you tune them out.

Jo hn Exactly. If all you’re doing is tell ing the person something they can see for themselves, why should they listen to you? As Eugene said, when we ta lk about scrip ts , w e’re Jo hn not just talking about some really If I could only give somebody one piece of advice, it would be to re interesting premise, some off-theduce the amount of procedural wall co ncept, or so m e poetic story . Ju st thin k of it as patter in your a way to im prove show. Take it Writing scripts isnt the tricks you al as close to zero ready do, in the percent as you about coming up with style you already can. By proce fantastic story scripts; use. That’s all. It dural patter, I it's about improving can be just a few mean the things lines, so that ev that describe what you already do. erything you’re what y o u ’re do saying is serving ing. “Here I have three coins. One, two, three.” Or a purpose, and contributing to the trick. Because if it doesn’t contrib “Here I have a rope, I’m going to ute, it subtracts. And so, even if cut it in two.” Now, there are times when you have to do th at— when your scri pt ends up bein g only you need to em phasiz e a cert ain four sentences, each one of them condition, or a certain number of helps the magic. props, you have to do that occa Eugene sionally. But as a general rule, a lot of that is bad, and there are some What Jo hn ju s t said is very im por shows where 90 % of what the tant. One of the most important person says is procedural. That’s principles is economy. If you just mostly because they haven’t spread a deck of cards and move toward a person, they take a card scripted it, and they don’t know


withou t you sa yin g anything. Any thing at all! But I don’t want to be “Hi take a card just grab one just grab any one just take a card!” That’s trivializing what I’m doing, and in the process it’s trivializing me. And the less trivial I can be, the more zeroes I can add to my paycheck. So there is a bottom line, after all.

References Eugene's essay, “Editing Scripts,” is at www .magicbeard.com.

My main goal is tofascinate the audience into thinking that they are dreaming, even i f this is onlyfor afew seconds.

Juan Tamariz


Gypsy Thread

O

ne sure way to tell when a trick strikes at something fundamen tal is to look at the variety of different presentations that have been developed for it. The Gypsy Thread is one of the true clas sics o f magic. It can be perform ed for any audience in the world,

and— if done w ell— will draw a powerful reaction. When I'm teaching English, I often have students w ho have never analyzed a poem and haven’t read or heard a poem since they began to read for them selves. If I just give them a poem and ask them to analyze it, they don’t know where to begin. But if I give them two poems and ask them to compare them, that they can do. It’s easier for the m ind to compare two things than to analyze one. The same is true with scripts. It’s revealing to see the different choices two different magicians make for the same trick. Here you have a unique treat— four different scripts for the Gypsy Thread, two each by Eugene and John. They cover a fair range of both style and sub stance, from sublime to eternal, history to comedy. When you read these scripts, notice how little narrative there is. Only the last one, really, and that’s only because it’s structured as a demonstration. Each of these scripts has only the words that add to the effect.


Cosmic Thread by Eugene Burger Int— Theater—Evening A single small candle, in a simple brass holder, on a beautiful wooden box. Next to it, a spool of yellow cotton thread. Eugene lights a match, and lights the candle. He blows out the match and picks up the spool. Eugene Yellow cotton thread. Eugene begins un spoolin g a length of thread. Eugene A single length, which will represent the entire universe. Pause. Eugene In the stories of ancient India, it is the God Brahma who creates the universe and all that there is. Brahma then retires... Eugene breaks off the length of thread. Eugene ...and the God Vishnu takes over. And Vishnu sustains and preserves the universe in every mo me nt of its existence. Eugene stretches the thread between his widespread hands. Eugene And then, at the end of time, the God Shiva app ears. .. Eugene holds the end of the thread over the flame, which burns through it, separating off a short piece from the whole.


Eugene ...and dances the Tandava dance... Again he burns a short piece off of the main thread. Eugene ...a weird and terrible dance of fire... Another piece is burned from the whole. Eugene ...in which the entire material universe is destroyed... The last piece is burned in half, leaving the entire thread in pieces in his hands. Eugene ...in blinding light brighter than 10,000 suns. Eugene draws away one piece and begins to slowly roll the others into a ball. Eugene And the universe is no more. There is only silence—vast cosmic sleep. Eugene holds up the small ball of cut pieces of thread. Eugene And out of this cosmic sleep, Brahma wakens himself again. Eugene presses the ball onto the remaining single strand of thread, where it sticks, hanging from the middle. Eugene He looks about, and seeing nothing— nothing lovely or beautiful, he decides to create the universe once more. Eugene takes both ends of the single strand and slowly begins to pull them apart. The ball begins to dance and bounce as the string draws out longer and longer.


Eugene And creating it, he retires, pleased with his eternal play. Eugene holds his hands out wide, showing the fully restored thread.

The End


Notes on Cosmic Thread If you think about it, this is really a history lesson. I f my teachers had taught like this, I’d probably remember a lot more history. Note the pause at the beginning. It separates the trick that follows from the preparatory action of removing and displaying the spool of thread. It’s very important. Many tricks depend on some secret action that is done before the spectators realize the trick has started. The Gypsy Thread isn’t particularly one of them, but I didn’t want to miss this point, which is that the pause makes this technique even more impenetrable. To the audience, everything that happened before the pause is separate from the trick. In this case, the pause serves to intensity the audience’s attention on Eugene, and what he’s about to say. The reason it works so well is that Eugene has just announced the intriguing fact that the thread will represent the entire universe. This line, coupled with the pause, tells the audience that what they are going to see is different from the usual magic trick, whatever that m ight be.

Method Eugene’s book (see below) has his handling. Many other books have han dlings. They all work. Pick the simplest.

Adaptation Obviously, you don’t want to do this exact presentation, because it is so strongly identified with Eugene. T his story works for Eu gene because it means something to him; pick one that means something to you. Pick a story you re ally like, and tell it as concisely and elegantly as you can while you’re doing the trick. I’m pretty sure that’s what Eugene did.

References This presentation also appears in Eugene’s book The Experience of Magic, Kaufman and Greenberg, 1989. Eugene’s handling appears in Spirit Theater, Kaufman and Greenberg, 198 6.


Human Thread by Eugene Burger Int— Theater—Evening A single small candle, in a simple brass holder, on a beautiful wooden box. Next to it, a spool of cotton thread. Eugene strikes a match, and lights the candle. He blows out the match and picks up the spool. Eugene Sometimes things that seem simple aren’t so simple after all. Eugene holds up the spool. Eugene A simple spool of thread. Eugene begins unwinding the thread. Eugene A single strand. Like our lives, there’s a beginnin g and an end. Eugene breaks off the length of thread. Eugene And in the middle, there is happiness, but also sorrow. Eugene burns a short piece off of the main thread. Eugene There is pleasure, but also pain. Another short piece is burned off the main thread. Eugene There are moments of intense love, and times o f tragic separation. Another short piece is burned off.


Eugene Betrayal. Another piece is burned off. Eugene Abandonment. The final piece is burned off. Eugene When the bonds between us seem broken forever. Eugene slowly rolls the threads into a ball. Eugene We hope that’s not so. We want something more. Eugene presses the ball onto the remaining single strand of thread, where it sticks, hanging from the middle. Eugene The human dream, the universal dream, is a dream of magic—and transformation. Eugene slowly pulls the ends of the single strand apart, until he is finally holding the entire string, fully restored.

The End


Notes on The Human Thread The Human Thread grew out of a version written by Eugene, Max Maven, and Peter Howard for a show at the Shakespeare Festival of Los Angeles.

References This presentation, along with Eugene's complete handling, is taught on vol ume three of Eugene Burger's Magical Voyages video series, L&L Publishing.


Forming an Eternity by John Lovick Int — Theater—Evening The Ghost of Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin appears. He steps to a table on which sits a lit candle and a spool of thread. Robert-Houdin Time is man- made. Th at ’s all, ju s t “Time is man-made.” He picks up the spool. Robert-Houdin Some people view time as flowing continuously in an endless stream... He unspools a length of thread. Robert-Houdin ...and some perceive it to be made of distinct parts. Centuries... He burns off a piece of thread. Robert-Houdin ...decades... Another piece is burned off. Robert-Houdin ...years... And another. Robert-Houdin ...months... And another. Robert-Houdin ...weeks...


And another. Robert-Houdin ...days... And another. Robert-Houdin ...hours... And another. Robert-Houdin ...minutes... And another. Robert-Houdin ...and seconds. The final piece is burned off. Robert-Houdin picks up the pieces and begins rolling them into a ball. Robert-Houdin Millions of moments... He sticks the ball onto the single piece of thread, then slowly draws the restored thread out. Robert-Houdin ...forming an eternity.

Fade Out


Notes on Forming an Eternity John wrote this for the Los Angeles premiere o f the play Laura Comstock's Hay, Punching Dog. John originated the role of the Ghost of Jean Eugene Rob-

ert-Houdin and created several magical sections, including this script. By the

way, John asked Eugene for perm ission to use the presentational device o f burning the thread in the flame of a candle. This is the only script in the book that ends with a fade out.

References Laura Comstock's Bag-Punching Dog , written by Jillian Armenante and Alice

Dodd, premiered in Los Angeles in July, 2003.


The Handsome Jack Lovemeter by John Lovick Int—Night Club—Evening Handsome Jack smiles at the audience. HANDSOME JACK I’ve got something here that can help each and everyone of you with your love lives. It’s the lat es t offering from th e Ha ndso me Jack Institute. The Handsome Jack Institute is dedicated to making you... a pale im itation of me. Jack holds up a small packet of dental floss. HANDSOME JACK What I have here that can help you with your love life is: Dental floss. No, I’m not talking about oral hygiene here, I’m talking about something I call “The Han dso me Jack Loveme ter,” an d he re’s how it works. If you are at all like me, you are young and single and you loves to mingle. You find yourself at a lot of parti es thinki ng, “I wonder if th is chick digs me ?” Up until n ow you r only op tion was to write her a note that said “Do you like me? Yes or no? Check one.” Well, now with the Handsome Jack Lovemeter, you can find out scientifically, and here is how it works. Jack pulls out a length of floss and cuts it off with the built-in cutter. HANDSOME JACK Take a length of dental floss and as you break it in to small pie ces you say, “She loves me... Jack cu ts off a piece of thread.


HANDSOME JACK

...she loves me a lot... A n o th e r cut.

HANDSOME JACK ...she loves me... Another cut. HANDSOME JACK ...she just wants me for my body... Another cut. HANDSOME JACK ...she loves me... Another cut. HANDSOME JACK ...she used to be a man... Another cut. HANDSOME JACK ...she loves me a lot... Another cut. HANDSOME JACK ...her husband does not. John st o p s —th ere’s nothing left to cut. HANDSOME JACK Oh well, you win some, you lose some. When this happens, and I get an answer I’m less than entirely satisfied with, I take all the little pieces and roll them into a ball. Jack rolls the cut up pieces into a ball, then sticks the ball to the single piece.

HANDSOME JACK I wander around the party, act natural, no one notices. If I see a wom an who cat che s my eye, I ju st ru n th e te st again. And I can run the test again, because I’m not ju s t the president of the Handsome Jack Institute... Jack pulls out the flos s—it’s resto red. HANDSOME JACK ...I’m also a client.

The End


Notes on The Handsome Jack Lovemeter This is the version of the Gypsy Thread that John performs in his standup act as Handsome Jack, a part which has garnered him a nomination for Magi cian o f the Year every year he has performed it. I f you’ve never seen a picture o f John, some o f the comedy o f him as a male mod el may be lost on you.

References Lonnie Chevrie o f Texas cam e up with the remarkably practical dental floss version o f the Gypsy Thread, w hich is detailed as “ String ’em Up” on the DVD Wanted!: The Outlaw Magic o f Lonnie Chevrie, Volume 1.

Developing Character: How do you do that?

T

he following question was asked in one of the online magic fo rums recently. I can't remember which one, but it doesn't matter; the same question comes up regularly in all the beginner-oriented forums:

Does anybody have any good one-liners for when someone asks, “How did you do that?”

The standard responses come up just as often. You can say “Very well, thank you.” Or you can ask “Can you keep a secret?” and when the spectator says “Yes,” you say, “So can I.” These are both terrible answers, but who cares what I think? I’m not a pro fessional magician. But I am a professional writer. And I can tell you this: if I were writin g a script an d one o f the characters was a magician, and I wanted the audience to immediately dislike this character, this is what I would write:

Spectator How did you do that? Magician 1 Very well, th an k you. This is what I would write to make the character twice as unlikable:

Spectator How did you do that? Magician 2 Can you keep a secret? Spectator Yes. Magician 2 So can I. I wouldn't have to include any further notes about the character. The actor, the director, the guy workin g craft services— they'll all know the magician is a pompous ass. If I really wanted to make the magician out to be a bad guy,


I'd have him take the spectator aside, as if to whisper in secret, then say “So can I” in an extra loud voice for other people to hear. The only thing I could do to make a magician seem less likable than that is to have him mistreat his animals. Seriously, I could write:

Spectator How did you do that? Magician 3 F_ck you! (Storms off) Magician 3 would be more sympathetic than either o f the first two. Because at least he’s dedicated. The audience might think he’s some kind of tortured artist, and they might want to see him redeemed. But the first two aren ’t inter estin g— they’re just jerks. When you perform, what you say is your script. Whether you write it out in advance, make it up as you go, or pull from your bank of one-liners, what you say and do is your script. And as any scriptwriter knows, your character is revealed by what you say and do. When you think o f what you say as a script, you immediately realize how terrible all these “one-liners” are. The best way to deal with a question like “ How did you do that?” is to take some time no w — before the question is ask ed— and script an an swer that will reveal your character the way you want the audience to see it. Here are a few possibilities to get you started:

"I practice a lot." This deceptively simple answer has a lot going on under the surface. It im mediately makes you more human and sympathetic, and keeps the spectators from thinking they could do the trick if they only knew the “secret.” And it subtly reminds the audience how hard you work for their entertainment.

"Did you like it?" When the spectator says “Y es,” you can say, “ Let me show you another one.” If you don’t have another trick to show them, just say “Thank you” instead of “Let me show you another one.” Either way this answer is good because it in directly acknowledges the question as a com plime nt (which it is). These answers are both good, but they don’t really have that much character in them. These next few respo nses are character specific, so they won’t be ap-

propriate for everyone. But they do show how you can infuse your character

into every aspect o f your act.

"My grandfather taught me that trick when I was ten years o l d . " This creates a priceless connection between you and the audience. You can follow this by talking about your grandfather, and the way you talk about your grandfather will tell your audience a great deal about you. If you like, you can follow this up with "Here, let me show you the trick my grand mother taught me.” I guarantee this will intrigue the audience.

"I know, I've been banned from every casino in Las Vegas." Another line that treats the question as a com pliment, this could work for a "Charming Cheat” character like Martin A. Nash. This line can be a little egotistical, but i f you deliver it with a hint o f sadness, the audience will almost feeling sorry for you.

"I practice all the time—my shrink says it's a good idea to keep my hands busy." If you're one o f those funny, slightly crazy people— someone like David Acer, sa y— you can get a good laugh with som ething like this. By the way, i f you’re not one of those funny, slightly crazy people, saying a line like this will not make you one. The best answ er I’ve ever heard was by the lovely Argentine m agician Alba. She carefully structured her routines so that every magical moment was pre sented as the spectator’s doing. At one point one of the assisting spectators asked, “How did you do that?” and she immediately replied, "You did it.” More important than any o f the lines you m ight read here or online or any where else is to think about what your answer to this question reveals about your character. Everything you say reveals som ething about your character. Everything. I still believe that the best way to deal with this question is to keep your spec tators from asking it. All you have to do is make what you did more interesting than how you did it. And the best way to do that, I believe, is to write a compel ling script for every trick you do.

An earlier version o f this essay appeared in Genii Magazine, October 2002.


T

his script is for a double-Card-to-Pocket trick called “Casual Travel ers,” which appeared in my One Man Parade in the May 2002 issue o f The Linking Ring. This is a great trick. I can say that because I claim very little credit for it. I only took three existing moves and

put them together. So as you read the script, don’t overlook the trick. In this script I introduce myself as the Magician Who Cares. This is played

tongue in cheek, mostly, but the part about me c aring — and by implication, other magicians not caring — is definitely based on reality. This script uses self-deprecating humor, which is not everyone’s cup of tea, but if you like it, feel free to use any part of this routine. I don’t perform professionally, so you’re not taking anything away from me. But i f you don’t like this character, don’t dism iss the script. Instead, notice how ev erything— the comedy, the handling o f the trick, and even the magical clim ax— are all integrated into a single whole. That’s because everything is derived from the character. The more o f your character you integrate into your work, the more your work becomes a whole, where all the components rein force each other. I f you do a variety o f tricks with a variety of props in a variety of different moods, with a consistent, distinctive character, your act will seem like a consistent whole. But if you do similar tricks, with similar props and similar presentations, but your character changes every trick, the result will seem like an incoherent mess. If you perform tricks usin g the “patter” from the instructions, this is a lmost certainly what will happen. So, i f you want your act to be a consistent whole, you really have to let character drive everything. You can still choose which tricks to perform, but you can’t really do a trick until you know how your character would do it. Earlier in this book I mentioned that every trick you do has a script. Even if you make it up on the spot, it’s still the script for that perform ance o f the trick. The same is true of character. You may say that you don’t play a character, and you may be right. But you still have a character, and your audience will perceive, and interpret, and respond to your character. It’s incredibly easy for a few poorly chosen words to give the audience a completely wrong impression o f who you are. Conversely, it’s very easy for a few well-chosen words to com municate that character to the audience quickly, easily, and entertainingly. The results may astound you. In this script you perform for two spectators; Ricky is on your right, and Lee is on your left. This ensures maximum cover for one move.

I Care by Pete McCabe Int—Living Room — Evening Pete stands in front of his friends, Ricky and Lee. Pete The problem with most magicians is that they don’t care. For example, a magician will pull a quarter out of your ear. But do they let you keep it? No! It’s your ear, it should be your quarter. When I pull a quarter out of your ear, it’s yours. Pete reaches into Lee’s ear, and pulls out... nothing. Pete (to Lee) Sorry. (to both) I really want to convince you that I’m different from other magicians. And so I’m going to perform... a card trick. Pete brings out a deck of cards. Pete For this trick I need to have two cards selected, and I’ll tell you why: I’m not that good. Okay? I need at least two chances. What I’m saying is, if I find either of your cards, the trick is over. Pete shuffles, almost spilling the cards. Pete Still, I care—right? Remember that, if I botch this trick. Pete spreads the cards face down.


Pete

Most magicians, when they ask you to pick a car d, spread the cards face down. Do you know why? Ricky No. Pete Because they don’t care. Pete closes the spread. Pete (Cont.) They don’t care if you have a favorite card, or if you want to take a look at the cards, see which one looks good to you. They don’t care. Pete shakes his head sadly. Pete I care. Pete spreads the cards face up. Pete I spread the cards face up. Because I care about you, Randy, in a very personal way. Ricky Ricky. Pete Ricky. And... Pete waves at Lee. Pete (Cont.) ...the rest of you. Now Ricky, if you see any card you like, just say “Three of Clubs!” or “Nine o f Diamonds!” Whatever it is.


Ricky Seven of Spades. Pete Except, “Seven of Spades!” Ricky Seven of Spades! Pete That’s excellent. The Seven of Spades; here it is. Pete shows the Seven of Spades in the middle of the spread. Pete (Cont.) Favorite card, or just looked good? Ricky Just looked good. Pete Intuition—I like it. I’m going to leave it right where you found it. Because I care. Pete turns to Lee and resumes spreading. Pete Lee, I care about you, not like other magicians, blah blah blah... okay? Lee Okay. Pete holds the spread in front of Lee. Pete Sing it out. Lee Jack of Hearts! Pete The Jack of Hearts! Here it is.


Pete shows the Jack of Hearts around. Pete Now that is fair—you could ha ve picked any card. Lee nods. Pete closes up the deck and turns it face down. Pete Now, Ricky, I can’t control your mind, can I? Say no. Pete gives Ricky a look, as if exerting some mind control. Ricky No. Pete No! Lee, can I control your mind? Say no. Lee No. Pete See? I can’t control your mind. But I can control the cards. Pete riffles the deck with his thumb. Then he reaches into his pocket and brings out Lee’s Jack of Hearts. Pete Your Jack of Hearts. One out of two—the trick is over! Pete turns to Ricky. Pete (Cont.) Ricky, I’m, uh... Short pause. Pete I’m sorry I didn’t get your card. Long pause.

Pete But I’ll tell you what, I’ll do a different trick. Is that a quarter in your ear? Pete re ach es into Ricky’s ear. Again nothin g. Pete Nothing. All right— I care, so I guess I have to try. Pete turns his head aside in concentration, then holds up the deck and riffles it with a dramatic flourish. Then he shakes his head. Pete Thought I could get it without looking. Pete looks at the deck, and riffles one more time. That’s better. He takes the deck in his right hand, shows his left hand empty, and reaches into his left pants pocket and pulls out Ricky’s Seven of Spades. Pete Hey, I got em both! That just goes to show you: if you care... wait a minute. What’s this? Pete reache s into Ricky’s ear an d pulls ou t a quar ter. Pete Really. Pete reache s into Lee’s ear and pulls ou t an ot he r quarter. Pete I think these are yours. Pete gives Lee and Ricky the quarters.

The End


Notes on I Care I love doing this trick. The first card is very magical, and the second is abso lutely astounding. This trick, more than any other I know, repays the time you spend lea rning the sleights required. The co mbination o f the sleight-of-hand you use for the first phase, (when no one knows what to expect), and the easy subtlety of the load for the second phase cancel each other perfectly. I've done this trick for years without the bit about producing the quarters at the end, and still do if I don't have two quarters on me. I really like the way they put an exclamation point on the presentation, but they are optional for sure.

Method Basically, you control the two selections to the top, palm Lee’s card, and as you produce it from your right pants pocket, you load Ricky’s card from the deck straight into your left pocket. You can use any control or palm. I use the spread cull from a face-up deck, and Vernon’s Topping the Deck palm; these moves are not too hard, but they are not too easy. To cull two selections from a face up spread takes practice, but it’s not that bad. Topping the Deck will take some w ork— I practiced an hour a day for a month before I used it in public, and about three months before I could do it without thinking about it. But when that time is done, you have a deadly m iracle o f a classic trick, which you can do anytime, anywhere, with almost any deck. Honestly, the biggest drawback to this routine is that it’s hard to do while wearing a sportcoat. You have to kind o f sweep the jacket back so you can do the load of the second card, which is hard to do inconspicuously.

Setup Put a quarter in your left and right pants pockets. This is actually option al— i f you don’t have any quarters, just leave that part out.

Performance I always begin by sticking both hands in m y pockets, as i f looking for so me thing, which I can’t find, but no big deal. Then I do the trick. This opens the left pocket up, so the card can be loaded easily. Don’t forget this step! Do the intro, until you get to the point where Ricky has chosen a card. Cull Ricky’s card under the spread as you turn to Lee; this turn o f attention covers the cull thoroughly. As you say, “You could have picked any card,” spread a few more cards, and cull Lee’s under that cover. I acknowledge that culling two cards requires practice. But it’s not that hard.

I once wrote a long article about the advantages of having cards selected from a face-up spread and controlling them with a cull, of which I will only inflict a summary on you. • The selection is unquestionably free (so no need to sign the cards). • You don't have to worry Alex might forget the card or deliberately misname it to screw with you. • Alex doesn't have to worry about rem embering the card (very important). • The handling is entirely natural and appears completely moveless. • The audience will be completely convinced the selections are in the middle of the deck. • You create a “We’re on the sam e team ” atmosphere (priceless). I think these advantages are fairly well demonstrated by this routine. If the way you control selections does not have all these features, perhaps you might want to try the face-up spread cull. However you get the selections to the top, you’re going to palm the top card of the deck. In my experience, you can divide magicians into three groups: 1) those who use the one-handed top palm, 2) those who use Vernon’s Topping the Deck palm, and 3) everybody else. Virtually every good magician I know is in one of the first two groups. I use Topping the Deck. To me, the greatest benefit of this palm is that if I do it competently, it can not be seen — even i f the spectators are burning my hands. So when I’m doing the palm, of course I use misdirection to draw at tention elsewhere. (In this case I turn to Lee, to ask her if I can control her mind, which draws all attention to her.) But when it’s time to do the move, I just do it. I don’t have to wait until the spectators look away. I don’t even look to see if anyone is burning m e— I just turn to Lee and do the move. I f you haven’t experien ced this, I can’t tell you what a psychological boost it is not to worry about whether your misdirection is going to work. I f you don't think about it, the spectators will never sense it. With the card securely palmed, riffle the deck with your left. Now you're go ing to produce the card from your right pants pocket as you load Ricky's card from the top o f the deck into your left pocket. Start by reachin g into your right pocket to produce the palmed card. Begin to draw the card out slowly, and as you do, turn to the left, so Lee can see the card coming out o f your pocket. As this happens, the deck in your left hand enters the left pants pocket and you thumb off the top card. This is very easy, and extremely well covered by the misdirection of the card coming from the right pocket, and by the turn to the left, which is well motivated. While you're removing Lee's card, pull out your


pocket a little with it. S ho w Lee's card and retu rn it to the deck, then p ush your right pocket back in; this is when you finger-palm the quarter, on the off-beat.

Now, turn your head, so you're not looking at the deck, and riffle it with your thumb. Then shake your head, and deliver the line “Thought I could get it without looking.” If you underplay this completely, like a small con fession, it's a strong but subtle confirmation that the card hasn’t gone yet, which makes the climax unbelievably powerful. It works because it seems to be something you wouldn’t normally want to admit. But you have to do it in such a way that it looks like you don’t care i f anyone hears you or not. Regardless, casually show the left hand em pty — I like to hold it up for si lence, which serves the additional purpose o f heightening the tension. Reach into the left pocket, finger palm the quarter, then remove Ricky’s card. It comes out facing the audience, so go extra slow, since you don’t have the builtin drama of removing the card back out and then showing the face. At this point you have a quarter finger palm ed in each hand. Reach behind Ricky’s ear and produce one. Shuttle pass it into your left hand, then reach behind Lee’s ear and produce the other one. I f you really care, you’ll give them to your spectators.

Adaptation The “magician who cares” thing can be taken out of this trick and applied to any trick. Probably it would be better if you cam e up with your own identity, but you can do a lot worse than the magician who cares. Then take any trick in your repertoire and see how you would change every line, every moment, every step o f the plot— everything— to fit the new character. Even if you don’t end up using that character or that trick, everything you do after that will be better for the exercise.

References Topping the Deck is in Select Secrets by Dai Vernon, published in 1949 by Max Holden. The spread cull goes back to Hofzinser. It’s in Volume 1 of Card College, and a million other places besides.

Jonathan Levit: An Actor Playing the Part of a Magician

Un prestidigitateur n ' est point un jongleur, c' est un acteur jouant le rôle de magicien.

Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin hen I first saw Jonathan Levit's name on the bill at the Mag

w

ic Castle, I didn't really want to see him perform. Because, quite frankly, he's an ass. I saw him on The X-Files (the one

where Ricky Jay gets killed), and you could just tell what a

self-centered jerk he was. But David Regal told me Jonathan had a great show, so I went. Turns out he's the nicest, most humble guy you could ever want to meet. He's not an ass at all. What do you know, he's an actor. At one point in Jonathan's show, he's talking to a spectator, and doesn't notice that he accidentally shuffles half the deck face up into the other half face down. After the shuffle he cuts, revealing a face-up card, which stops him in his tracks. He cuts a few more times and discovers that there are a whole bunch of face-up cards mixed into the face-down deck. Then comes the moment of truth. He looks to the audience, and asks "What's going on?” And people helpfully tell him that he accidentally shuffled ha lf face up and h al f face down. He digests this information, then says he can fix that, snaps his fingers, and spreads the deck to show it is all face down. I know maybe twelve magicians who can actually pull this off. Jonathan actually has to get distracted by something the spectator says, every time, at the exact same point in the trick. It is not exactly easy to make the audience understand what happened, m uch less get them to believe it. Now, it is a cliche that audiences love to see the magician in trouble. Well, ma ybe— i f they don't like you. But i f the audience likes you, they don't like to see you in trouble. When Jonathan does this, people are not happy that he has screwed up. Because they like him. Despite the fact that, as anyone who watches The X-Files can tell you, he's obviously a self-centered jerk. Scripting your m agic brings many benefits you can't get any other way, but it requires its own work as well. The more you script your magic, the more you want to be able to perform a script. In other words, you have to be an actor playing the part of a magician. So I thought I'd ask Jonathan, who is in fact an actor, how he develops and integrates his acting skills into his magic. He generously and graciously agreed. He really is the nicest guy.


Pete

A lot o f m agic ia ns ta lk about what Robert-Houdin said as though it were a theoretical issue. But I think it’s the ultimate practical advice for magicians. Unless you actually have magical powers, you are only acting as though you do. If you want to be a better magi cian, you need to improve your acting skills. Jo nath an I agree with that. Pete Good. Because otherwise this in terview is over. Jo n ath an I’ve been on stage for most of my life. I’m used to performing. I’m used to being overt. And I came out here and started to study the ater and acting. And when I start ed, all my acting was very big. Pete Because on stage, it has to be. Jo n ath an It all came from my experience be ing on stage as a magician. Pete You were doin g magic firs t, befo re you becam e an acto r? Jo nath an I’ve been doing magic since I was 8. So that would be 26 years. I started off as a street performer at the age of 12 . And so everything w as big. I’m workin g fo r an au di

ence on the stre et— ever yth ing I do has to be big. Pete Even in the middle of the show, y o u ’re still try in g to bring more people in. Jo n ath an Exactly. So when I began to study acting, in Los Angeles, 8 or so years ago... Pete So, street performer for 14 years, from 12 to 2 6 , and you suddenly decided to become an actor. Jo nath an Right. I was working for Quark, liv ing in Denver, Colorado. And when anyone would ask me what I was going to do for a living, I would say “I’m going to be on a sitcom.” Of course. And after saying that enough times, I realized they don’t make sitcoms in Denver, Colorado. So I moved out to Los Angeles, and the first thing I did was start to study acting. So what happened to me was, everything was big. And when y o u ’re acting fo r tele vis io n or film, you need to bring every thing in, make it small. And that was counte r to what I knew for the past, at that point, 16 years. So I started to change the way I acted, whic h in turn changed the w ay I perform. Now, there’s a cohesion of those two. My performance still seems big, but it’s actually small er, and more controlled, and more focused. I’m more out there, and more extreme than I used to be,

but it’s more focused. So I’ve mar ried the two. Pete I wanted to talk to you about act ing techniques, because the first thing that happens when peo ple start to script their magic is they realize what Robert-Houdin meant—they need to be able to perform a script. And that takes skills and techniques that many magicians don’t study. You need to get better at the things an actor is good at. Jo nath an Abso lute ly. Pete So, what are the most important skills for an actor, and of those, which are the m ost im portant fo r a magician? Jo nath an Don’t ignore the bagel. Pete This is exactly the kind of sophis ticated acting technique I was hoping for when I set up this in terview. Jo nath an One of my acting teachers was in a show, and at one point there were three scenes going on at the same time on stage. And in one of the scenes there was a bagel, and the bagel accidentally got hurled into one of the other scenes. And the actors in that other scene jus t went about their business, as if there were no bagel. So the point is,


don’t ignore the bagel. One of the most important skills of an actor, and this absolutely carries over to magic or any other performing art, is: Don’t ignore what happens to you on stage. I have a script, and I follow the script. But I leave the script all the time to respond to the audience. You can’t be con fined to your script, to your show, to the routines, to the point that yo u ha ve no flexib ility. Beca use if you have no flexibility then it’s boring, for you and for the audi ence. But more for the audience. Because they can tell. So being relaxed, being real, and not ignor ing the ba gel— not ignoring w hat’s happening around you. And don’t ignore what happens in the audi ence. The close-up room at the Magic Castle holds 22 people. And every show, I walk out between those curtains and I have no idea, usually, who’s in the audience. No idea who’s sitting at my table. No idea who’s sitting in front of me. And that means every sh ow ha s the potential of being drastically different. And as it turns out, ev ery show is drastically different. Pete Most of the time, unless it’s one of the five best magicians in the wor ld or so m eone who may die soon, if I’ve seen a magician three or four times, I’m probably going to skip the show. But I see you ev ery time you work, because I know I’m going to see something that’s different and fresh every time. There are very few performers who fall into that category .

Jo nath an And that com es from bein g real, and being relaxed, and not ignor ing what’s going on in the room. If you ’re real... man y m agic ia ns fall into the trap of being “a magician,” saying stock lines. So it’s impor tant to know who you are, and to know your character. And be real, which kind of contradic ts “know your characte r,” so let’s ta lk ab out that first. My character is an exag gerated form of me. It’s the guy I wan t to be most of the time. Your character might be somebody to tally different—John Lovick is Handsome Jack. Everybody has a different character.

The Amazing Jonathan—not me, the other o n e— is a character. He has moments with his assistant that are very real, and very under stated. And it’s a real moment that happens every single night. Pete At 9:23 exactly.

Jo nathan Right. And that was a problem for me, which did not get cured until I started studying acting. I was just a wild guy on stage, with no focus and no un derstan ding of who I was. So I could make people laugh, but it wasn’t a refined character. And the audience knows that—they know when they’re watching a Pete performer who’s at one level, and There was a great Vernon Touch article from an old Genii , and it a performer who’s at a higher lev el, and one of was a li st of fifty the differences different char You have to commit is the character. acter identifica Are we w atchin g tions for magi even to thefaults a piece of the cians. Like “Mr. of the character ater? Or are we Electric” for Marand not be afraid. watchin g ju st a vyn Roy. Every guy who’s goofy one had a char The audience and does magic acter so distinct wi ll appreciate it. tricks? Teller is that with two or a perfect exam three words you ple. You totally accept this guy could sum up that character. who d oesn ’t sp ea k. And you are brought into his world. So when I Jo nathan started acting, I became more fo And they’re on stage. Rem em ber cused, more refined, and my char as a magician, you’re on stage acting as a magician. And Robert- acter started to evolve. And what I found out was that it really was Houdin’s quote is all important. me, but an extension of me—the Because you’re an actor, with a guy I wanted to be. Outgoing, con character, who does cool stuff. And yo u ’re tryin g to entertain , fident. I could act like I was all the things I wanted to be. So if you can and ideally fool, an audience. But figure out who you want to play, ultimately you are a character.

and if you can commit... you have to commit. Pete And befo re you can co mmit, you have to have som ething to comm it to. Jo nath an You’ve got to co mm it to what y ou ’re doin g. You can’t be tenta  tive. You have to commit to the character and the script. And be that guy. Pete Do you find it easier to play a ver sion of yourself, or a character that’s different? Maybe it’s not as nerve-racking if you’re playing someone else.

into his world, and we accept his faults. You have to commit even to the faults of the character and not be afraid. The audience will appre ciate it. Pete If everything he does comes from his character, then it’s like it’s not even his fault. I can even be sym pathetic, because I know it’s just his nat ure — he can ’t help it. Jo nath an If you commit to it, the audience will at le ast fe el th ey’re se ein g something real. Even if they don’t believe the character is really you, they still experience it as though it were real.

Pete Jo nath an So how do you commit? I think Act ors lo ve to pla y som ebody one of the reasons a lot of magi else. Because it allows us to be cians don’t use acting techniques more free—we don’t have to face is that a lot of acting technique sounds too the ourselves. And as a magician, I oretical—it’s not think the same immediately ob I f you don't thing holds vio u s wha t you script your show, true. I prefer to do in the real it's hard to go be an extension w orld. of myself. But much beyond Jo nath an if you can to making each trick tally commit to That’s really stronger than the last. a character, you hard to answer. can do it either It’s almost an in way. Fit zgera ld , nate thing. But, that’s Gary O’Brien’s stage name, if you’re free, if you can be stand is a good example. He commits ing in front of a group of strang to his character, and sometimes ers and be free, and not ignore the character is so goofy, we don’t the bagel, not ignore what’s go ing on around you... We’re very think we would like the character. But because he commits to the constricted people. We’re closed character so fully, we are brought off. We’re afraid, either to offend


somebody else, or to expose our selves. And as magicians and per formers, you’re on stage for the sole purpose of exposing your self. And if you’re willing to ex pose yourself completely, then it becomes much easier to commit. Now you sit down and say, “Who is my character?” My character may be a smarmy guy, maybe he’s a bumbling fool. And he doesn’t get anything right, and he drops things, and he’s not comfortable with anyth in g. And everythin g be comes part of that. You sit down and ask yourself what difficulties you w ould have. And everythin g thing you do in the act can reflect your ch aracter. Pete So one way to improve your level of commitment is to take every moment of your show and figure out how your character would deal with it. Because that’s one of the aspects of commitment; not that you leap into everything in extremis, but that you apply your character to every detail of every aspect of the show. Jo nath an Commitment is not just being over the top. Commitment is com mitting to the character. It’s being w illing to put in the time to think of every aspect of the show. How would my chara cter dea l with that situation? How is my character go ing to have a card selected? How is he going to find it? How is he going to bring the deck out of his pocket to start the show? How’s he going to open the pack and take out the

cards? All those little details you can put in— that’s comm itment. You se e m agic ians who go in and out of the cha racter— they ’re a certain character one moment, and then in between tricks they are different. Pete My favorite moment from the sit com Taxi is an episode that has a flashback to when Jim Ignatowski, the drugged-out reverend, was in college. And in the flashback he’s completely different—he’s an ut ter bookworm, uptight, anti-druggie type. But he also looks differ ent, in a way you can’t quite put your finger on. His gir lfrie nd keeps telling him to lighten up, and she tries to get him to eat a pot brown ie. And just to please her, he takes a bite, and then he says “Now can we ple ase go stu dy?” And then, a moment passes over him, and his face changes from Christopher Lloyd to Reverend Jim. His cheeks sink, his jowls move down, the eyes go dim. And then it’s over, his face goes back. And—first of all, it’s hilarious. But if you think about it, you realize that when he plays Reverend Jim, he’s holding his face that way. For 75 episodes, every single second he was on camera, he held his face that way. That’s commitment. Jo nath an It’s brilliant. Physicality is very important. Who is this charac ter? How does he walk? How does he behave? How does he handle his props? How does he handle the people that he deals with on

stage? How does he handle his w ords? That’s his ch ara ct er. Those things all make up your character. And so you have to unders tand your characte r an d be to ta lly com  mitted to every part of the show for that character. Pete You have to be w illing to go through every moment of he show and say “How would my character do that?” Jo nath an And that’s much ea sie r to do if you have a script. Because you know what all the m om ents are. If y o u ’re improvising, and you don’t know w hat’s goin g to happen, you have to figure out how your character will re sp ond to everythin g righ t there on the spot. If you have a script, you can go through, point by point, before you get up there. An d cre ate the character you wan t, as it is revealed by the script. Pete I’ve seen some magicians who, if they don’t plan their character in advance, the character that comes out spontaneously is not always the best possible choice. Jo nath an Character is so important. Pete This is another thing that people say is important. And it is, but how do you really start develop ing a character? Where does it come from, in practical terms?


Jo nath an It comes from scripting how your character behaves, how your character interacts with the au dience, with your props, your physicality, and with your words. A bum bling id iot w ould n’t ta lk in an upper class way. He might try to, but he’d bumble it. So the two have to match, otherwise your chara cte r is unbelievable . An d the audie nce w ants to be lieve—they want to be taken into somebody’s world. That’s what they want. But if they’re ju st w atch ing a guy throwing out some cool tricks, that’s not going to do it. Pete That’s not a world they want to be taken into. Jo nath an You se e a m agician th at does trick after trick after trick, and they’re never more than a magician that does trick after trick after trick. You co uld pu t any fa ce on the body, and it would be the same show. But you see someone who is a character, and it takes it to a new level. Pete I know some magicians who fear that once they learn the script, they’ll be less able to respond to things that come up. That if the bagel comes by, you’re less able to respond to it. Jo nath an You’re more able. When you know your sc rip t well enough that you

can come back to it, then you can go off on an y tangent you wan t, and still get back to the big finish. But if you don’t have a script, you’re much more afraid to diverge, to be real, to respond to the bagel, because you might not be able to pick up the trail again. You have to start from a base. If you don’t, you won’t know the th ro ugh-lin e o f the show. A show that has a throughline, a show that has an arc, is much more entertaining than one that doesn’t. And the only way to get a through-line, an arc, is to have a script. Pete You’re not ju st talk in g about h av ing a build, where each trick gets stronger than the last.

them to relax. If they’re sustained at a constant level, whether it be low or high, then they’ll get bored. But if they have a moment to re lax, and a moment to get excited, then both moments will be stron ger. And also, you’ll have more op portunity to deceive them. Pete It’s a lot easier to get away with something during those low mo ments. Jo nath an That’s right. Magic happens on the off beat. So to have an off beat, your show fi rs t has to have a beat. I saw a magician this evening, and the audience was rough. They w eren’t giv in g him much. But be cause he had his script, he knew he could bring the show to a suc cessful conclusion.

Jo nath an That’s correct. You do want each trick to build, but it’s not the same Pete as a through-line. Building is the first thing you do when you’re put So in addition to allowing you to respond to what the audience ting a show together. And, if you gives you, a script also allows you don’t script your show, it’s hard to deal when the to go much be audience isn’t yond m akin g Magic happens giving you any each trick stron thing. ger than the last. on the offbeat. An arc is the So to have an offbeat Jonath an evolution of the your showfi rst The script is character in the has to have a beat. like a security show. Now the blanket. With a show itself may script you know get heightened, and more dramatic, but it’s also an you can alw ays do an en te rtain  evolution w ith ups and down s, and ing show. Because you never know peaks and valleys. We want to get what the audie nce is goin g to giv e the audience excited, and we want you. If you rely sole ly on the au d i ence, you can get into trouble. But them to relax, and we want them to get excited again, and we want if you have that script, and you’re

,

comfortable enough with your she was just starting to cross over character, you can go outside the that line where she was gonna be script, and interact with the audi a problem—you had to do some ence. And that’s when it’s more thing. And you just looked at her fun. That’s why I try to make my and said, “You’re so drunk!” And show different every single time. it was a great moment, because it You wan t to be aware, an d sen si w as as honest as you co uld p o s tive, and obser sibly be. The vant of w hat’s audience broke Anything that you doy happening in the up completely, audience. If you and it totally i f you make it real, pretend there’s brought her back it's more interesting. a wall between to your side. She yo u an d the au  laug he d — you dience, then it’s boring. Unless didn’t say it meanly or any yo u’re on a sta ge, and yo u ’re p re thing—and it was just enough senting a piece of theater in that that she didn’t make trouble any way. more. She was still drunk... Pete But in most performing situa tions—especially the performing situations most amateurs come across—you’re not up on a stage doing a show. Jo nath an There’s more interaction. And so, the way to make that interesting is to make it unique and special for that particular audience. And the way to mak e it special is to pu ll the audience into the show. Now they become part of the show. So if somebody makes a comment, respond back. If something hap pens on stage, respond to it. Pete I still remember the best line I ever heard for dealing with a drunk spectator. You were in the CloseUp room, and one of your assist ing spectators was way drunk. And the show w as go in g gre at, but


Jo nath an It didn’t make her sober. Pete ...but it brought her under con trol. Jo nath an These are the moments when yo u ’re out there . I lik e to th ink of my magic act as I’m a guy who’s hanging out with all these people, and I’m doing some cool stuff, and I’m jus t as am azed as the audience is. So we are both going out for this ride, and I don’t know what’s going to happen, and we’re taking this ride together. I’ve had instances where people in the audie nce will be sitting there, and their arms are crossed, and they look stern. And I’ll look at them and just say, “You look pissed.” And at that moment they laugh, their arms become un folded, and they smile. And now they’re part of the show. So you

ju s t a c c e p t and an d a c k n o w le d g e that th at they’re there, and you don’t ignore them, but respond to them, and make them a part of the show.

a script. Because it gives you that security blanket that makes it saf er for you to go with the audience. You can ca n lo s e y o u r s e l f in the th e m o  ment, and if nothing comes of it, yo y o u can ca n s till ti ll pull pu ll it off, of f, an d fin fi n ish is h strong. Being available is another aspect of this that’s applicable to magic. You have to be as willing to allow things to happen to you as the audience is to allow things to happen to them. Then you both can experience it together.

Pete There’s something about honesty, about just responding to what happened. You don’t have to have a clever line. I mean, you’re not going to read one of those books of one-liners, and turn to the chapter on drunk hecklers, and see, “You’re so drunk.” But it’s so Pete much better than any canned line. Because people can tell if some If somebody says something, and y o u im m e d ia te ly m ake ak e it p a rt o f thing’s a line. And to respond the yo wa w a y y o u did di d , th ey k n ew that th at it w a s the show, the audience knows not no t a line — it was actu ally you r they’re seeing something that the genuine response. For the entire last audience didn’t see. audience, it totally cemented the Jo J o n a t h a n moment. They knew that you were there, with them, fully. It’s special to them. And again it’s not ignoring the bagel. A friend of mine was in a show recently, and Jo n a th a n Be in the moment. That’s another it was a Passion Play. And during the crucifixion, a woman from the big acting concept. audience was overcome by the story. She jumps on stage, crying Pete This is another one of those things “No! Don’t take Jesus!” All the ac that you tell your average amateur tors on stage are stunned, and no magician, and even a few profes body has any idea what to do. But sional magicians, “You really need one guy—an extra, basically, play to be in the moment,” and they ing a Roman Guard — step pe d up, nod, but the next time they’re per stopped her, and took her away, off forming, they don’t know what to stage. His character took over, and did what he would have done. do differently. So what do you do, in practical terms, to be in the mo Pete ment? He was a hero. That was probably the highlight of his run. Jo n a t h a n Look around, and be willing to in Jo n a t h a n teract, and react to what ha ppened . Ye s. S om e p e o p le in the th e a u d ie n c e And An d on e p r a c tic ti c a l th in g y o u can ca n Yes. do to make that easier, is to write didn’t know if that was part of the

show, because that’s what a Ro man Guard would have done. His character took over. Fete The more you work on your char acter, the easier it is for you to re spond to those moments. Jo n a th a n Because you’re more comfortable being in your character. And if you are alive, and you are available to yo y o u r sh o w an d to y o u r au d ie n c e , w o n d e rfu rf u l m o m e n ts com co m e to y o u , and you can add them to your script to make it better. But you have to be available, to tell when yo y o u h av e a c h a n c e to re sp o n d . And An d yo u h a v e to be w illi il lin n g . An d, yo y o u ha v e to h av e a sc rip ri p t. Pete Let’s talk about the physical skills of the actor: voice and movement. Jo n a th a n When I sta st a rt e d as a stre st re et p e r former, I would hurt my voice every night. Because I would be ye y e llin ll in g , fro fr o m m y thro th roat at,, in ste st e a d of speaking from my diaphragm. When I sta s ta rt e d to trai tr ain n as an acto ac tor, r, I learned how to breathe. When yo u firs fi rstt p a y atte at ten n tion ti on to y o u r breathing, you’ll probably find it’s coming from your lungs. But whe w hen n y o u ’re ’r e b re a th in g p ro p e rly rl y , it’s your diaphragm that expands, not your lungs. A great exercise is to lay down on the ground, flat on yo y o u r b ac k, c lo se y o u r e y e s , and an d breathe, and imagine the breath coming in through your nose, and imagine it goes all the way down

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to your diaphragm, in your abdo men. And feel your diaphragm ex pand and contract. And that is the proper way to breathe. Pete Now you can talk much longer. Jo n a th a n One, I can speak deeper. Because I’m not back in my throat, here. And An d two, tw o, I can ca n p ro je c t m ore, or e, it ’s not getting getting cau ght up in my throat. Houdini played the Hippodrome wit w ith h o u t am p lifi li ficc a tio ti o n . L ea rnin rn in g to breathe is probably the most im portant physical skill for a magi cian. I used to breathe improperly, from my lungs. Pavarotti does not breathe from his lungs. Pete When I took to ok s in g in g le s s o n s in c o l lege, the first two hours was just breathing. Jo n a th a n When y o u w o rk the th e C as tle, tl e, y o u might do 24-30 shows in a week. If you don’t know how to breathe, yo y o u ’re g o in g to h u rt y o u r v o ic e b y the end of the week. I would say, if yo u lear le arn n n o th in g e ls e ab o ut v o c a l production, just try this exercise: Lie on the ground, and think about yo y o u r b rea re a th in g. A nd w hen he n y o u ’re ’r e talking—any time, on stage and off—think about your breathing. Pete My former roommate sings on Broadway, and he studied with a cantor who taught him an exer cise where he he would s ing — single notes, notes, or even jus t h um ming— but

on the inhale instead of the ex Jo n a t h a n hale. I foun d this m ade a huge Think about how you follow difference in my tone. He gave me through on your swing when you two sessions of this, and my voice play golf, or tennis. You need fol Improved dramatically. It felt so low through in your voice, to get we w e ird ir d to do it. My h ea d w o u ld sta st a rt to the last person in the last row. buzzing, and after maybe five sec If yo u ’re spea king to the the front row, row, onds I would start coughing. Soon vo v o lu m e - w is e , an d a ls o w h e r e y o u r the coughing stopped, and I real mouth and face are focused, then ized that the buzzing was a good yo y o u r s o u n d d o e s n ’t h a v e a ch a n c e thing. And in two sessions my to travel up to the top of the the singing voice was richer. ater. But if you raise your head, and you project to the back wall, Jo J o n a t h a n yo y o u kn o w y o u ’ll get ge t e v e r y b o d y . Most people don’t learn this. So if you follow through on your They’re never taught how to vo v o ic e to the th e la st p e r so n in the th e last la st breathe, how to sing, to practice row, that is a big help. I used to on the inhale. come out on stage, and my head wa w a s h e ld do w n , so I w o u ld ign ig n o re Pete everybody in the room. A lot of Voca Vo call p r o d u c tio ti o n is no nott j u s t a m a t magicians, especially close-up ter of volume, and endurance. It’s magicians, will look down at the the range of sounds you’re able to table. And when they speak to the express, and your ability to pro table, nobody can hear them. You duce exactly the sound you want, need to lift your head up, and fol and to produce it every time you low through. need it. Pete Jo J o n a th a n I never heard it put that way be The w ay you say a line, line, a word, the fore. tone, the inflection, can change the meaning. It can make it funny. Jo J o n a t h a n Some people can take a line that I never put it that way until just isn’t funny, and make it funny by now. the way they say it. And if you can do that, and do it consistently, Pete y o u ’ll in c re a s e y o u r s u c c e s s . But So, what does this all add up to? vo v o lu m e is stil st illl im p o rt a n t. You Yo u he ar magicians who talk softly, and it’s Jo n a t h a n hard to hear them. And that’s no What it all al l a d d s up to is, is , take ta ke an good. acting class. I recommend every magician take an acting class. In Pete an acting class you’re going to So how do you work on that? learn about physicality, behavior, and voice. When you take an act

ing class, you’ll be nervous to do vo v o u s , and an d it w ill h elp el p you yo u to lear le arn n a scene. Because it’s something to be available, and open, and yo y o u ’re no nott fa m il ia r w ith . But w h en expose yourself. We were talking yo y o u sta st a rt s c r ip ti n g m agic ag ic,, th a t ’s about this earlier—actors expose more what you’re doing. One rea themselves. Most magicians, even son scripting many flamboy magic can be ant performers, B e f ore or e you can ca n b e scary to some are very closed som something thing you’ you’re not, magicians is be off. And magi cause they don’t cians that can you you have to le lea ar n think they’re expose them how to be what wh at you are ar e ve v e r y go od at p e r  selves, and be forming a scene. open, are much They’re good at getting up and do more interesting performers. So ing a trick. And it ’s true, th ey ’re not take acting classes, and improv that good at doing a scene—only classes too. because they haven’t done it. But that doesn’t mean you should Pete ju s t do so m e tr ic k s . It m ea n s y o u I’ve spoken to more than a few should get good at performing a magicians who tell me they im scene. And you get good at it by provise their patter—because doing it. “scripted patter sounds stale.” So I ask if they take improv classes, Pete and you’d be amazed how many of If you can do a scene, and have them have never even considered people take it as natural, all your it. I mean, if you like to improvise magic will be much better than if yo y o u r p e rf o rm a n c e s , grea gr ea t. But yo y o u c a n ’t do that th at.. don’t you want to be good at it?

.

Jo n a th a n Jo n a th a n An A n y th in g th at y o u do, do , if y o u m ake ak e Every magician should take an im it real, it’s more interesting. And prov class, even if you script ev in an acting class, you learn to erything, just so you can respond make it real. If you take any script to the audience. and read it like a script, you can make it boring. But if you take Pete the same script and make it real, I took an improv class when I lived yo y o u m ake ak e it in te r e s tin ti n g . An And d th a t ’s back in New York, and I remember w h y y o u ’re ’r e an acto ac tor, r, p la y in g the th e the first rule is Accept Every Offer. part of a magician. Because if you And A nd on onee n igh ig h t I w a s w a tc h in g y o u in the close-up gallery, and a wom don’t act it properly, it’s not real, and it’s not interesting. So any an had cut her card back into the body should take an acting class, deck. And she kind of interrupted and when you take the acting class yo y o u an d a s k e d , “Can “C an I sh u ffle ff le ? ” you y ou w ill be s c a re d , y o u w ill be n er  An d y o u sa id “S u r e .” An d I kn ew

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yo u d id no nott w ant an t her he r to sh u ffle ff le,, but you had to accept every offer. It didn’t even occur to you to say anything other than “Sure.” Jo J o n a th a n Improv classes are so important. You le a rn to go w ith it h the th e flo w , and an d go with the moment, and not be afraid of it. That’s one thing that improv does for for yo u — it makes makes yo y o u no nott a fr a id . T h er e ar e m an y performers and magicians who are afraid of what’s going to hap pen. I still get nervous, but I’m not afraid anymore. When I come out from the curtain, I’m not afraid to come out. I can’t wait to come out. Because I don’t know what’s going to happen, and that’s the fun of it. And An d t h a t’s the w h o le id e a o f tak ta k in g improv classes, you’re in a safe environment where you can learn these things. Pete My favorite improv game is the one-word story. Two people get up on stage and improvise a story, and you alternate words—each person says one word at a time. To me this is the essence of improv, because you have to be ready to make a choice, but if the choice falls to your partner, you have to be ready to instantly drop your idea and follow their choice. Jo n a th a n You Yo u d o n ’t r e a lly ll y w an t to m ak e that th at choice in your head until you ab solutely have to. You want to just be in the moment. You can either be in the moment, or in your head. An A n d i f y o u ’re ’r e in y o u r h e a d , y o u ’ve ’v e

lost it. If you’re in your head, you can’t experience everything that’s happening to you. Now as a magi cian, you have to be able to think about what’s happening down the road a n d be in the moment. That’s wh w h y it ’s h a rd e r to be a m a g ic ian ia n , sometimes, than an actor. Pete We We t a lk e d ab o u t v o ic e , b u t w h at about movement. Any tips on how magicians can improve their physicality? Jo n a t h a n The way to do that is just pay at tention to your body, and the way yo y o u a c h ie v e that th at is, is , b y d o in g the tricks you’re most comfortable wit w ith h . A lot lo t o f am a teu te u r m a g ic ia n s learn a trick, and show it to their friends, and then you kind of run out of audience, so you learn a new trick. And when you do that, it’s really hard to get good enough at a trick that you can do it with out thinking. But when you can do a trick on autopilot, that’s wh w h en y o u can ca n p a y a tte tt e n tio ti o n to yo y o u r b o d y. M os tly tl y it’s it ’s d o in g the tricks you have the most experi ence with. The more comfortable yo u ar e d o in g the th e tric tr ick k , the th e le s s attention you have to pay to the method, the more you can pay at tention to your body. Pete That sounds like practical advice. Jo n a th a n And A nd I w o r k out. ou t. But w h at I c o n  centrate on mostly is my posture. I work on that every day, wheth

Scripting Magic by Pete McCabe

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