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DougRoy Regular user 149 Posts |
I am seeking personal recommendations for high impact, small stage/platform effects that can involve my professional assistant.
The setting would be a bar/club. Open to almost any type: ropes, silks, mind reading, escapes, etc. Intermediate level, with no difficult sleights involved is preferred. Any ideas and suggestions are MUCH welcomed! Thank you in advance! Doug R Salt Lake City |
Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
Any trick can be made to be an High Impact enhanced magic trick with an Female Assistant when not using a table of any sort on stage. The assistant becomes a movable table in essence. She performs the necessary whenever possible to create the magic, unbeknown to the audience. If you are looking for a list of tricks, I am not going to do that because it is to great a task, then you will come back with, "that is not my style", which is a great excuse here on the Café. I suggest you start with the Abbott's Magic website www.abbottmagic.com and take a look at the many tricks that are turned into magic by the use of an assistant. Hopefully, you will find tricks that are you style.
Don't forget to add music sounds at the right time for the magic moments. If you are I a club, pay the drummer to fill in those moments with drumrolls, and cymbal crashes. This is always better live, but if you use recorded sound then that is second best. |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
I knew that if I waited, my friend Bill would give you the facts of life and hold nothing back. I'll just add a few more thoughts.
It appears that you want people like us to do your homework for you! We cannot possibly recommend, or even suggest, any "high impact, small stage/platform EFFECTS" You don't even know, what you are asking for! An EFFECT is what the spectator sees, or t h I n k s that he sees, when the magician performs a trick! A trick, like music, only exists while it is being performed! You apparently think that buying a prop (you cannot buy a "TRICK") that your assistant can "operate", and, to perform, you will need little or no skill,will "give" you an act that will entertain a bar crowd. Well, you are in for a very rude awakening!!! There aint no shallow end in this pool! Before you jump in, you must learn how to swim! Odds are that at least one or two "magicians" will jump in here and suggest their "favorite" trick, which, they have "demonstrated" (not performed) for at least their family and close friends. I REPEAT! No one can possibly help you by doing that! They would be foolish to try, and you would be more foolish to listen to that type of advice. NEMO DAT QUOD NON HABET!!! (NO ONE CAN GIVE WHAT HE DOES NOT HAVE!!!) If you are serious about developing a commercially successful act/show, you need TALENT, and, a WILLINGNESS TO READ AND STUDY, AND LEARN MORE THAN JUST HOW TO DO TRICKS. Many years ago, the late S.H.SHARPE, who was a qualified magician, said it very well: "Those who think that magic consists of doing tricks, are strangers to magic. Tricks are only the crude residue from which the lifeblood of magic has been drained." Write that on the blackboard 500 times, and, it may sink in! Once you have read, studied, and learned the basic principles of magic, as Doc. Tarbell explains them. You should read, study and learn how to "sell" your show, by reading, studying and learning Kenneth Weber's book, "Maximum Entertainment".
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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chmara Inner circle Tucson, AZ 1911 Posts |
Garden of flowers and botany properly choreographedmto fill the stage, not just dump the props -- while expensive is a colorful and memorable sequence that can be foreshadowed with sleeve bouquets, and topped off with big boutanias. I strongly recommend you NOT get poorly made or chicken feather stuff that wears out and fa;;s apart in fluffs of fluff as you perform. I DO recommend Richard Hughes flowers AND tapping his extensive knowledge of how to program, use and add too basic tricks to make a wow routine.
Or -- and it is like finding hen's teeth, Marshals Flowers (I believe it was Horace Marshal that trained Richard) I have used their stuff purchased both used and from collectors as well as the current owner of Marshals. AND realize that while expensive -- most magicians will not spend the money for a really colorful, impressive and stage filling routine where you do not cut anyone up (LOL>)
Gregg (C. H. Mara) Chmara
Commercial Operations, LLC Tucson, AZ C. H. Mara Illusion & Psychic Entertainments |
chmara Inner circle Tucson, AZ 1911 Posts |
BTW - plug, plug -- I have several sets of European and Marshals available on my sale lists -- and for viewing nb my Photobucket:
http://s1010.photobucket.com/albums/af22......%20Sale/
Gregg (C. H. Mara) Chmara
Commercial Operations, LLC Tucson, AZ C. H. Mara Illusion & Psychic Entertainments |
Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
DougRoy, what I can do is reference some magicians who used Professional Assistants, without the assitants the acts would not work the same, or as well.
Tom and Sherri - watch the misdirection Sherri creates in this act - this is a prop act, you can get all of the props at Abbott's Magic Joseph Gabriel - watch how important the assistant is to the act The great Johnny Thompson & Co. - comedy magic with an assitant |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
Hi Bill! Thanks for the "T&S" tape. Sherrie has been gone for over 20 years. We worked together on a corporate show back in the '80s, in Charleston, West Virginia. When they first played Abbott's GTG in the '70s, I worked with Karrell in the "Fox Follies", and we "did" Tom & Sherry. The vanishing cage got a show stop laugh. Last I heard, Tom is in the Dayton Ohio area. He left the business when Sherrie died. Nice people, and good friends!
I tell the story of Jay Marshall, Dick Stoner, Al Goshman and I catching TOMSONI, before "& Co." came along, in the book. It was Johnny's opening night at the Playboy Club in Chicago.
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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DougRoy Regular user 149 Posts |
Thanks for your posts (and for your video posts, Bill. Great performances indeed!). Dick, not looking for anyone to do my homework for me, but simply trying to get suggestions for a starting point. You make great (and valid!) points, and I DO understand the difference between doing 'tricks', and providing/delivering true entertainment. I appreciate you post, and your input.
Thank you! -Doug |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
"Yer" welcome!
I did hit you rather hard. Perhaps I inferred more than you intended. "Cold type" makes it easy to misconstrue meanings! So! Now that I have your "attention: (hee hee) PM me if you like, and, perhaps, we can discuss this a bit further, and, maybe I can make a few suggestions that may be helpful. If I had tried to suggest specific tricks, (see my post) I would have been wasting your time--and mine! I would need to know a lot more about YOU, your KNOWLEDGE, EXPERIENCE, TALENT. --Plus! your GOALS! Best wishes! O
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Rainboguy Inner circle 1915 Posts |
Dick:
I must say that you did a VERY beautiful "Sherrie" in the "Fox Follies" and it's all there for the entire World to see on page 78 of Karrell's "AbraKfox" book. I see that the photo is credited to "R.Hughes". Richard, if that was YOU that took that picture, if it was ME, personally....(1) I wouldn't fess up to it, myself! and (2) I'm not so sure about that guy (or is it a gal?) pictured at left. <grin> |
Dick Oslund Inner circle 8357 Posts |
I still have a few (hundred) 8 x 10 glossies of that! For sale (cheap) autographed, at no extra charge.
Sherrie was wearing a classy silver lame' dress that year. Abb Dickson happened to have a "jump suit" that "worked" for funny "copy" of her wardrobe. She was a beautiful platinum blonde with long straight hair. The mop wig helped to sell the bit. Sherrie spent an hour rehearsing me, for her "strong" entrance. The laugh stopped the show. It even broke up Karrell! Tom & Sherrie were good friends. I remember working with them at a regional convention in St. Paul, Minnesota. They "stole" the show!
SNEAKY, UNDERHANDED, DEVIOUS,& SURREPTITIOUS ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK
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Thom Bliss Loyal user Southern California 271 Posts |
There's another thread somewhere on the Café on the same subject.
One thing that you need to figure out -- and which would help people help you -- is the relationship between you and your assistant (for purposes of the act). Are you loving husband and wife, husband and wife who have just had a fight, master magician and apprentice (but maybe she's the better magician), rival magicians, etc. Here is a link to Harry Anderson and his wife on SNL (starting about about 1:50): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMY5RguBWnk David Nixon performing Chase the Ace with the host of the show (starting at about 6:50). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMY5RguBWnk Personally, I think that this is better than solo performances of the trick. Here's an excerpt from Abbott & Costello doing Passe Pasee Bottles: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KxEi6hs2Fa4 |
Bill Hegbli Eternal Order Fort Wayne, Indiana 22797 Posts |
Just found this DVD that should answer your original question. Rich Marrotta has a DVD available on how to involve your Assistant into the act called, Dynamic Duo, The magic of Rich Marrotta and Twila Zone. At $10.00 is should be worth a look.
http://richmarotta.com/store/2220/ |
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