Ricky Jay is starting to tour with his new show "A Rogue’s Gallery: An Evening of Conversation & Performance" and will appear in Boston next Friday. READ MORE

Ricky Jay's new show premiers tonight in Boston. In anticipation (and to promote he show) there's a lengthy article profiling Jay and discussing "Rogue's Gallery." In the article, Blaine is quoted as saying that Ricky was his "Greatest Teacher." READ MORE

I'll be there tonight; very much looking forward to it!

Let us know what you think!

Not long enough. Time passed by really quickly.

It really wasn't a magic show, but a discussion of performers and oddities. If I was spending my own money, I would have gotten cheaper seats since the performance was mostly story telling with a few effects thrown in for good measure.

There were quite a few magicians in the audience. I'm sure they all enjoyed themselves, and all of the folks that I overheard talking during intermission and at the end of the performance had a good time.

I was somewhat surprised to see the full house with it being Good Friday and near Passover.

Where the effects all card routines?

Was it directed by David Mamet?

My wife and I had a great time.

Jay talked about his collection and his lifetime of collecting material relating to magic, cons, and unusual performers. He then displayed 108 items from his collection, projected on the theater's movie screen. He invited the audience to call out numbers from 1 - 108, and he would tell the story behind each piece. Some of the pieces were linked to other items, or associated with short video clips. This was all handled via computer, allowing "Fitz", the unseen computer geek, to zoom in to each item, blowing it up large enough to take up the entire movie screen, but still in sharp detail.

We heard stories about hanging out with Sigfried and Roy, Steve Martin, Shel Silverstein, Charlie Miller, and Maurice Fogel. We saw posters and heard stories of Chung Ling Soo, a Mexican escapologist, Harry Kahne, and others.

Along the way, Jay offered a few performance pieces. While I had read that the show would not include material "recycled" from earlier shows, this wasn't true. He did two pieces from his "On The Stem" show, one centered around the collection of a collector gone blind, and the grand finale of mental multitasking, with his doing the Knight's Tour, solving cube roots, reciting Shakespeare, and singing "field hollers". He also did some card throwing, a cards across, and a (meh) "Just Chintz" effect.

The weak spot here was the audience, unfortunately. At some points, they felt like a bunch of "Oooh! Ohhh! Pick me! Pick me!" junior high kids, all shouting at once. It might be nice to have a system, such as the time-honored lobbing of something into the audience, which is then thrown from person to person. Just a thought.

Despite that, I still had a great time. I'm a huge fan of Ricky Jay's, and of the weirdo history (and the history of weirdos) he so revels in.

And I saw Michael Weber acting as his stage b1tch.

I have read that the show was directed by Mamet.

Be well, all.

Rory

Tickets are available for Toronto, and it is a short drive for me.

What percentage of the show is effects?

Take that short drive and don't worry about how many tricks he does.

I hope I get to see this at some point, I very much enjoyed both 52 Assistants and On the Stem. Jay is one of the very best we have.

It really wasn't about the effects, not that he didn't do them and do them well, but if you go looking for effects, then you will be disappointed.

But saying that I have to say that it was a great evening. I chatted with a few folks who were at the show today at the Magic Art Studio and everyone agreed that things were entertaining and that the time passed very quickly. We could have stayed and listened to hours more if he would have kept it up.

How long was the show? Any intermission?

Actually it is a 5 hour drive, and will have to stay overnight.

Short being relative....

One intermission. No one allowed in once the show started. If you left you couldn't return until the intermission.

I don't remember exactly, but I would guess that the show was around 90 minutes long excluding the intermission.

Thanks for the review. There are no reviews onine yet from any of the Boston papers.

Has there been any mention of Jay extending the tour other than Toronto?

Thanks again for the info..................