Hi fellow magicians,
I had this idea while reading the tarbell course ebook.
The performer does an illusion in which a (female) assistant dissapears, such as an asrah. But instead of making her simply reappear behind the audience, the performer says: "I now will do a card trick. Any volunteers?" A woman wearing sunglasses and heavy clothes puts her hand up, and goes on stage. The performer then says, for example, "may you please shuffle these cards". She shuffles them, and the performer says: "Are these cards well shuffled?". She then spreads them on the table, and all the cards are in order. "How did you do that?" says the performer, and then she takes off her wig and her clothes. She is the assistant that vanished a minute ago.

Do whatever you want with this idea (except patent it, of course) and tell me what you think about it?

Nabil Stendardo

PS: If you are interested to discuss about methods to sneak a dressed-up assistant in the audience, PM me.

That is an awesome Idea...that would work great...

you know what...

I have two sisters that are identical twins...

I could have one preplanted in the audience...as a matter of fact...there is so much stuff that I could do with them!

Good idea Kyle. I personnally would not use twins, because it defeats the principle of creativity. My idea was very simple (since it is my method, I will allow myself to post it here)

You have two stooges at the side of a line of seats, the one on the outer side dressed just like the other assistant's costume. Just before the trick with the dissappearing starts, or even before, the dressed-up stooge says to the other one "May I please go to the bathroom?". She goes off, and at the end of the trick, the dissapeared assistant, who just dressed up sits at her place. And now the stooge, who just "went to the bathroom" can take her costume away and be used as a second assistant.

How many people in the audience are all dressed up?

Not a bad idea, just not a good application.

How about cross dressed as a guy? The "volunteer" is onstage. You and the audience start to notice something funny.... and... ??

As to twins versus creativity... please... method is subordinate to theatrical considerations.

And wearing sunglasses in a dark theatre???

But a neat concept and worth pursueing

And being a twin. I have to say we have done that for Dracula were both of us where dracula but to the audience there was only one of us. It all depends on the show. But don't dog the twin idea :O)

Michael

WOW! She takes her clothes off?? That should get a round of applause!

Just kidding around. That is a great idea. I can see it working out for you.

Phil

In 1998 and 1999, I closed my shows at the Texas Renaissance Festival with the following. I had two female assitants -- one dressed in white and blue, the other black and red. Good vs. Evil. Evil puts Good into an Assistant's Revenge. They change places. I make a comment about how women will never amount to anything until the 20th century, because they won't work together like men.

They grabbed me and put me into the Assistant's Revenge, and pushed it DSC.

While it was DSC, they began to poke the curtain with swords and spears, generally bedeviling me. I objected to the whole thing, finally saying, "Well, I'm out of here!"

They opened the curtain, and I was gone.

After some comedic byplay, I made my appearance in the back of the audience, in my Merlin hat, pointy shoes, a Hawaiian shirt and Bermuda shorts.

Interesting part was that it was basically an open air theatre. No side walls past the edge of the stage -- open seating. It was all done by misdirection.

No twins, either.

Sounds very interesting. As long as there´s no way that he audience even imagines that twins are even close!

The first time I did it was as the ending for a metamorphosis. But the metamorphosis is a young man's illusion. I kept barking my shins on the box. So I changed over to the Assistant's Revenge, which is basically a vertical, low impact metamorphosis.

The rest of it was done by what I would call the "invisible man" principle. People get used to seeing certain things, so they don't notice them.

It's like when you go into an office building. If the letter carrier comes in and leaves, you probably won't take note of it.