Putting Together a Unique Magical Programme

We magicians aren't as original as we like to think. Much of our inventive work is in the details, but the audience doesn't care if the card gets loaded into the wallet from the top or from the side. Thankfully, the majority of audience members are seeing a magician for the first time when they watch you. Still, I wonder what they think when they realize the next magician also has those big steel rings... and puts ketchup bottles into paper bags... and receives bananas in the mail...

I feel as guilty of this as anyone, and never does my pool of magical repertoire seem so shallow as when I’m trying to coordinate with other magicians on the same show.

“Oh, you’re doing a rope trick? Okay, I won’t do ropes. You’re doing a thing with envelopes, okay, scratch my Bank Night then.”

It’s not just a one-for-one trade either. One routine can knock out a wide swath of other possibilities. If I’m doing the Benson Bowl routine, in which sponge balls are appearing under a bowl, then it removes the Cups & Balls, Chop Cup, and any other sponge ball routine from consideration.

If I do my Professor’s Nightmare routine, it doesn’t matter what you do with a piece of rope. It looks and feels too similar from the audience perspective.

Magicians get upset when they ask someone to “pick a card” and they say “oh, I’ve seen this one,” as if there’s only one pick-a-card trick in the world. But in show business the audience perception is audience reality. I’d argue that a general magic show should only have one pick-a-card trick, and if you do it again you need to make it feel very different.

As with any performance, it’s about creating the best experience for the audience and the best experience doesn’t include a feeling of “oh, we’ve seen this before.”

Your goal is to create a full programme of new, exciting, interesting, magical surprises and delights.

Not so easy!

Checking All The Boxes

Assembling a diverse program is a challenge, even for a solo act, when you’re looking to fill an evening with an hour or more worth of magic.

One classic bit of wisdom is to consult a list with all the basic types of magic effects. Depending who you ask, and which book they’re reading, this list might have eight, ten, or more classifications. Here’s the list from Dariel Fitzkee’s “The Trick Brain” (1944)

The concept being to make sure your set list represents a variety of these effect types, and you’re not repeating your favourites too much.

This is even more delicate for a mentalist, as they are limited to only a few effects. I’ve seen performances struggling to create a full meal with only one ingredient. “Pick any one of these six cards and it matches my prediction. Now pick any one of these five teddy bears and it matches my prediction. Now pick…”

This list alone, however, does not ensure variety. You could spend an hour doing every single one of those effects using only coins, but your audience would be grinding their teeth by the end of it, totally numb to seeing yet another coin trick.

Memorable Moments

Ultimately it comes down to creating unique theatrical moments, which means the danger of repetitive action goes beyond the level of different tricks or effects in your repertoire. The granular elements must also be unique. If I throw a frisbee into the audience to have some random numbers said aloud, it becomes less exciting to later throw a beach ball around the crowd to have a card named. Even if the tricks are entirely different, we’ve seen that idea already.

The most common cause of magic show monotony is not the props, or the tricks, but the performer themselves. They stand in the center of the stage, holding something in their hand, and talking. Over and over again. There are no theatrical dynamics. No change in their voice, physicality, or emotions.

You can put your act to the photogenic test; If a photo of your performance gets snapped every 30 seconds, how many of them would be distinct images?

It really is a lot of work to make every moment of your show unique, fresh, and different. But as a small step all you need to do is make a new choice in that moment. Change where you stand. Change how you speak. Change the picture. Do anything… different.

Peek At The Pro's Set List

I’m always curious about other magicians’ set lists to see how they assemble a unique show. What are you actually performing? In what order? Admittedly this curiosity is largely driven by this feeling that I’m always making it up as I go along, and I assume everybody else has it figured out.

I also assume I’m not alone in this feeling, as there’s always an uptick in interest for an old trick after it gets performed on TV. This desire for the safety of somebody else’s proven winners is a big factor in the ‘sameness’ of our collective repertoire.

Fortunately, I can satisfy my curiosity into working repertoires, without jumping onto the same wagon as every other magician, thanks to the publication of a couple fascinating old books. These collections simply describe the acts of magicians, from the audience perspective. What they did, and the order in which they did it.

Even more fortunately, these books are so old that they are in the public domain, and I can share them with you in their entirety.

From those yellowed pages, a short description of a performance by Professor Fuller shows we haven’t changed much in the past 150 years.

It’s got a good variety of effects and moments. That would still make for a nice 15 to 20 minute act today.

We can also sit in on a full evening show presented by Harry Kellar;

This is a great example of variety with a constant string of surprises. The old coffee trick is ripe for a resurgence in our current culture. It’s also interesting to see the great illusionist presenting a complete mentalist act, a la Dunninger, as a third act change of pace.

I lament that the desire for practicality in our magic props has given us a modern magic show which fits in a suitcase, but compromises on presenting a spectacular evening of entertainment.

No doubt inspired by the previous book, Max Holden set out to document the acts of modern magicians, at the time of publication in 1937.

Since we’re on the topic of variety it might be interesting to highlight the programme of Nate Leipzig as he famously performed with only a deck of cards.

I was intrigued at the inclusion of the stabbing trick when the previous routine also includes finding a card by stabbing a knife into the deck. Although, the first time the stabbed card is wrong. I plucked “The Leipzig Book” by Dai Vernon and Lewis Ganson (1963) off the shelf, and it offers a more detailed description of the act.

It turns out the first stab, the one that misses, has the spectator holding the knife trying to find their own card. This makes for a great lead-in to Leipzig’s own stabbing effect under challenge conditions.

The book also reveals, at least in earlier years, Leipzig was opening this act with a thimble routine. So I don’t want to hear objections from the “I only do cards” people… get yourself some thimbles like a real pro!

The urge is strong to pick up a trick after seeing another person have success with it. These two ‘Programmes Of…’ books offer one of the few options for ethically stealing from another performer’s act. Rather than copying ‘being inspired by’ your peers, these programmes are all off the market and ready to be stripped for parts like a rusted car.

Your Unique Path Through Magic

My cynical side is thinking most magic show programmes are more strongly influenced by the latest dealer catalogue than by careful consideration of a well-rounded audience experience.

On the other hand the checklist approach to variety seems arbitrary, making the repertoire selection seem overly important as if you can classify your way to a winning show. The trick doesn’t matter. There’s no formula for success. Paint-by-numbers does not an artist make. How you do it is more important than what you do.

Have the courage to pick up a long lost trick and put yourself into it. You don’t need Dai Vernon’s blessing to tell you it’s a good trick. Your audience will do that better than any other magician can. The thing that will make any trick uniquely special is the thoughtful effort you pour into that vessel.

What would you perform if you were on a show with six other mystery magicians, and you all had to go in blind with no discussion? What could you do to feel confident in your uniqueness?

As with everything in putting your show together, it’s more important that you consider the question, than find the ultimate answer. If you can think about how this next card trick is going to feel uniquely different than the previous twelve, you’re all set. You can leave the thimbles in the cookie tin.