I have always done a switch on the Monte because you are exactly right - nobody wants to lose and it leaves a bad taste. What I do is put my own money on the table and state that you can have it if you find the money card. When the spectator comes up empty I tell them that to thank them for their participation they can take the money anyway. You can do it for a quarter and get the same response as a dollar bill. Best wishes, Dave

I too use stories to present some tricks... I even say I don't know how it works and act amazed myself.. I even sometimes act confused. I only hope I am convincing it's hard to tell what people see when your doing your trick.. and I find with some tricks it's better to start of with a little story and to let them know that I don't understand how it happens myself.

Practice your patter, and have great confedence in you magic. When your doing a trick try to picture the card really dissappearing.

'triumph' is a good magician in trouble plot so is 'that's it' by eddie fechter.

You will find a of difference performing for friends or family and performing for a "general" audience. First they came to be entertained while your friends may have felt roped into or worse, obligated to watch. Second, that old adage, familiarity breeds contempt, may be in force. Regular people understand (usually)there is an agreed upon area upon which it is considered impolite to tread. Friends and family have no problems crossing that border.

As for acting = Magician, it is a myth. While certain techniques may be shared, and more venues than techniques, the magician and his/her character is always aware there is an audience, where an actor may know but his/her charcter doesn't.

Yes, yes there are exceptions - but they are exceptions (He spoke as an aside to the audience).

Very few magicians have successfully crossed over into acting. McBride did a masked character on Star Trek TNG, and David Copperfield made his film debut and swan song on Terror Train. My mind is blanking on the most successful of crossovers. He wrote Cards as Weapons, and did a one man show _______ and his 52 Assistants. Someone will help fill in the blank.

Study some of the (dare I say it) Clowns in the Cirque Solei (sp?) Where surprised looks, and reactions to situations is the comedy.

Frank Tougas

Shakespeare was and is often played to the audience. The Globe Theatre- huge audience interaction there. I think his works and characters may be a gray area, or not, in terms of awareness of audience, Frank. Someone else may be more qualified, or not , than I to speak to that.

Snidely Whiplash: (as an aside to the audience) Nnayahah I knew someone would bring up Shakespeare.

Certainly you can not argue the average magician is a good actor? Then again to those who study acting - everything is acting. To those who study art - everything is art. To those in the theater everything is theater. And to those who study magic - everything is...psychology! (I told you we were a weird lot)

BTW: Ricky Jay was the one I could not remember.

Frank Tougas

As soon as you are in front of someone else and they are watching you - you are an actor. All the world is a stage... Best wishes, Dave

Well, I've tried, Frank. Perhaps we all should strive to be above average.

Laurie, I live in the land of Lake Woebegone, where everyone is above average. And to the great Dave, you've never stopped to watch a bafoon? How about an accident at the side of the road? If your definition of actor is true, you are insulting all those who spend a great deal of time and effort to achieve excellence in that profession.

I am not saying acting ability would not benefit the magician, I truly think that it would. I just contend that being one does not make one the other.

Frank Tougas

A couple of small ponts.
Frank went to a high school that specialized in teaching art.
He went to college to teach art.
He taught art and magic for several years before becoming a psychologist.

To those that say anything before someone is acting surely must be aware of the logic in that if everything is red there is no such color. Is the villian on stage that acts as if he murders someone the same as a murder on the street that shoots someone? Are they both acting? Isn't acting defined as that which acts in lieu of some real action. Based on this person's definition, there is no real action.

Another question.

If a magician does magic that the audience sees through, is he still acting, is it still art and is it still entertaining?

Isn't art created by the process of observing? To those that speak fondly of art and acting, you speak as if you create the emotional aspect of all of this. You seem to disregard the power of the audience to make up their own minds.

Some people I have talked to see no art at all. They see people dumping coins over the edge of the table and putting the lid "of that little pill box" on the bottom of the box. This is art?

Al Schneider

Al,

I just give my take on things. I'm an observer- and an ACTOR - and I call things like I see 'em. I've seen some magicians that ARE fabulous actors. The audience has the prerogative to decide, for sure. It's not a BLACK and WHITE issue. I agree.

Frank - and Al,
All the World's a Stage is a song lyric by the rock band Shakey Willey and His Spears from about 1616 A.D. Here is a link to the Band ...

http://www.allshakespeare.com/quotes/260


Best Wishes, Dave

Dave,

It is NOT a quote by Billy Shakespeare:
(To be spoken with great authority) "But it is indeed a line from a play, oft quoted and misunderstood by those who whoudst only rely on e-notes. Gadzooks! it was spoken not by Mr. Shakespeare, but by a chracter of whome he wrote in a play. Jaques, a pesimest at best, presents but his ramblings on how his philosophy is paired with that view with which he takes of the world. It is not, as you woudst have us infer, a scollarly dissertaion on that which we woudst call a thespian. However, despite your paltry attempt to cut me to the quick, I thankest you for the try." (Exit Stage Left).

Frank Tougas

Seems a little like Much Ado About Nothing