Ted,

Your performance style is very casual. At some points you not only connect with audience but you become part of the audience. Is this a factor of the type of venue that Cabaret is?

Can you describe the Cabaret venue? The intimacy with the audience? Here in The US stage performers rarely have the opportunity to sit with their audience. Something which might do them some good.

Is it typical in Cabaret to interract with one's audience so completely, or is it just the rare and successful performer who does so?

I imagine that Cabaret is more like a performance in a supper club was like in the 40s in The US.

Great to discuss magic with you again my friend,

Tom

Dear Tom:
My performing style differs a little bit from that of other magicians or mentalists, because it is MY OWN.

You are right, when you write that I not only connect with the audience but I become part of it. That became more or less my "trademark" in Europe. My "mingling-with-the-audience-approach" is very risky for another performer, because he isn`t ME and he hasn`t therefore my personality. So my kind of appearance is hard to copy, because it takes boldness and guts to perform a trick like "The Coin In The Bottle" for an audience consisting out of 3500 (!) people.

Let me give you an example: Here in Berlin exists a circus tent, in which famous rock orchestras or singers work. It holds about 4000 people and it is called "Tempodrom". They hired me for a job on their 5th. anniversary. The magicians in Berlin went nuts and they told me, that the audience there is usually very rough and if something isn´t of their taste, they throw empty beer-cans in the ring. I would die there on my feet with my "small stuff" they said. I performed:

Six Card Repeat
Borrowed Bill in Borrowed Cigarette
Multiplyng Bottles
Linking Finger Ring Routine

May I tell you, dear Tom, that I created a sensation and after this huge success all the jealous magicians kept their big mouth shut, because they could not únderstand that I could make such a success with the "&%#* tricks" they said always.

The so called "Cabaret" is dead since a long time, today the varieté houses are en vogue again, the audience doesn`t want to watch the telly anymore, they want to see live entertainment again. Unfortunately due to the change of our "Deutsche Mark" into "EUROS" the entertainment industry has dropped 40 % and that isn`t good for the afore mentioned varietées.

Cabaret could be translated into "Stand-Up" today.

You are right, only the rare and successful performer can do this kind of work for obvious reasons.

I tell my pupils every time: It´s NOT The Trick......It´s YOU!

ESPecially

TED