A challenge of sorts

WitchDocIsIn

Elite Member
Sep 13, 2008
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I recently recurved a gig request that is a bit unusual. A couple is renting a cabin in my area and want to hire me for a private show there. They specifically want my style of performance, meaning bizarre magic, mentalism, and hypnosis.

So here's the challenge to you folks: what material in your repertoire could you use to create a 45-60 minute performance for 2, maybe 3, people?

For me, I know it'll be 5, maybe 6 routines. I'm thinking my 7 Ages of Man, a living/dead test, my Voodoo Doll, a pain resistance routine I've been wanting to bring back, maybe psychic surgery, and possibly a hypnotic routine I created around the idea of the Gom Jabbar test in Dune.
 
Mar 3, 2018
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106
I recently recurved a gig request that is a bit unusual. A couple is renting a cabin in my area and want to hire me for a private show there. They specifically want my style of performance, meaning bizarre magic, mentalism, and hypnosis.

So here's the challenge to you folks: what material in your repertoire could you use to create a 45-60 minute performance for 2, maybe 3, people?

For me, I know it'll be 5, maybe 6 routines. I'm thinking my 7 Ages of Man, a living/dead test, my Voodoo Doll, a pain resistance routine I've been wanting to bring back, maybe psychic surgery, and possibly a hypnotic routine I created around the idea of the Gom Jabbar test in Dune.
A would recommend a pk touch routine.
 

WitchDocIsIn

Elite Member
Sep 13, 2008
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My Voodoo Doll routine is essentially a PK Touch routine.

But the crux of the thread is what would you do?
 
Mar 3, 2018
151
106
My Voodoo Doll routine is essentially a PK Touch routine.

But the crux of the thread is what would you do?
I must've misread your post. I thought you were asking for some recommendations. Sorry about that! As for what I would perform to a small group of people, I rarely do any formal or paid performances. I usually perform magic casually at parties with close friends and family. The material I usually use are Loops(which includes a pk touch routine), Lit, Bare, Sponge ball routine, and a Bill change using a TT.
 

JoshL8

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Aug 5, 2017
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WA state USA
Wow, that’s a long performance for that many people! Maybe not for you, you seem like a seasoned performer and I think your style can fit that type of venue really well.…but me I would shoot for half of that time. My inexperience and style limits me especially in that type of setting. And I’m sticking with your venue for this exercise…I really like the cabin in the woods feel and would hate to squander that by cutting aces etc🤣

I would start with a self opening matchbox and light some candles to help set the mood. Some falling objects or flickering candles to further sink in the ambiance, maybe move on to a tarot reading (I only know one trick here…) Ending in a scary story…either a version of Scream by Jamie Dawes or a haunted key presentation about being buried alive I’ve gotten permission to use from a local magician.

I don’t have this fully scripted or routined. This was more of an exercise for me…but maybe by this Halloween I’ll get a working version of this🤣
 
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WitchDocIsIn

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Sep 13, 2008
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It's good that you're keeping the venue in mind. The space will always play a part on how the material is perceived.

My list of material is very bizarre focused but you all don't need to limit yourselves that way unless you want to. This couple approached me for my style - invasive how you'd respond if they reached out to you for your style.
 

JoshL8

Elite Member
Aug 5, 2017
408
393
WA state USA
I get ya. The venue is just so ripe for amazing presentations, it’s too good to pass up! But same idea but in my usual style…and I think that’s a problem for me since I haven’t made a solid statement about my style, or at least one that sets me apart from the majority of magicians. If they want cheeky, charming, and laughs…they could do better than me🤣

If I were approached and asked for a more intimate performance 1 hour is still a huge leap for me. I’ve been fleshing out small 8 to 15 minute sets for street or bar type audiences. But it sounds like that type of venue is for a couple or good friends so I would choose something revolving around the group or couple being amazing.

Starting off a Bottle production! I don’t go to someone’s house or party without a gift! After some pours it would be my ace cutting routine about my grandfather showing off, I’m awesome just like him…Followed by the couple or group cutting the 10s…maybe we are all a bit of awesome! then an interlude with coins, copper silver using shot glass is a fun one. Ending with a intimate/romantic card trick where they find each others card.…it’s amazing that with all the variables they found each other!
hmm…needs less cards. 🤔 I’ll think about this a bit. So far it feels jarring or hurky jerky. I’m smushing some sets together here, The coin bit usually goes with a mini cups ending with a shot as the final load. Maybe I would end it with that instead of the romantic card trick.
 
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Jun 3, 2020
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Ben Seidman's Oracle is nice when there's a couple people present because you can do it differently each time.
And it's one of those that if you do it right, you can stretch it out bit and it'll be that more personal and amazing.
If that's your style.
 
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Jun 3, 2020
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I misread that. Let me fix my answer...

I'd start with Banachek's' This & That.

Ben Seidman's Oracle is nice when there's a couple people present because you can do it differently each time.
And it's one of those that if you do it right, you can stretch it out bit and it'll be that more personal and amazing.

I have a couple fake hypnotism effects I'd squish in there but I don't have names for them.
One is a fun card prediction and the other is a fun camera effect. Basically where you make them feel they've disappeared but the premise is that they didn't disappear, the picture is evidence of their absence when they were hypnotized and ties into the card prediction.

Finally, PK Touch if there's 3 or more people. I end mine with 2 blindfolded volunteers and they're drawings match.
If there's less ppl, I yell, "That's all I know!" and run out of there.
 

WitchDocIsIn

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Sep 13, 2008
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My impression of Oracle was a reading with a card trick. My sincere advice is to drop the card trick and just learn how to do readings - people react far more strongly when there's no trickery involved.
 
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Jun 3, 2020
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My impression of Oracle was a reading with a card trick. My sincere advice is to drop the card trick and just learn how to do readings - people react far more strongly when there's no trickery involved.

Thanks for the advice.
I'm in the very early stages of learning the basics of readings.
 

WitchDocIsIn

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Sep 13, 2008
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A little advice - avoid magic industry sources for readings. Look into the shut eye market and you'll not only learn faster, they'll be better readings.
 
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RealityOne

Elite Member
Nov 1, 2009
3,744
4,076
New Jersey
Heirlooms - The Show

[A large keepsake box is placed on the table and alongside it is a cardboard card file box]

I've always been the family historian and a collector of family heirlooms. So let me start with a simple statement, my family has always, going back generations, been... well... a little strange. So tonight, I want to share my own personal collection of strange with you.

[Magician pulls out green velvet box and puts it on the table]

I tell a story about an eerie armoire in the upstairs bedroom in my grandparent's house and perform a Haunted Key routine with the key to the armoire that my grandfather left me.

I then talk about my grandmother and bring out her teapot. I talk about the parties she would have during prohibition. I fill the teapot with a bottle of Coke and then pour out a drink for each person from the teapot that they select from a menu of 10 different drinks. Credit Jim Steinmeier

I bring four worry stones out of a velour bag and talk about the concepts of worry and prayer. After the handle the worry stones themselves, all of four them are put into one of the spectator's hands. Earlier in the routine I use an old Russian quote that "Praying is like asking God to make two plus two equal five." I talk about the Danish Soren Kierkegaard who said the purpose of prayer is not to change God but to change the person who prays. I also talk about my mother and how she taught me to pray. At the end, I turn to the spectator holding the four worry stones and tell them that maybe, just maybe if you pray the right way, two plus two might just equal five. They open their palm and are holding five worry stones. Credit Eugene Burger.

I tell a story about my cousins who were smokejumpers and the strange blocks of wood they found in a circle of unburned grass amidst the incinerated ashes of someone's hunting shack in the forest. I then demonstrate Less is More which has three blocks which get heaver when one of the blocks is removed and even heavier when the second block is removed.

I offer the spectators each a second drink from the teapot.

I then pull out a book of magic spells and a picture frame. In the picture frame is a dried rose. I explain that my grandmother on my father's side (not the one with the teapot), used to read everything she could about magic and witches. She even ended up with a book of spells that she wrote herself. I show the book and you can see that every page has handwritten magic spells. I explain that I've tried many of them and none of them work... except one. A spell to turn back time. At the end of the routine, the book is blank - just like it was before my grandmother wrote in it and the rose is blooming - just like it was before my grandmother dried it in the picture frame. And maybe, just maybe, the spectators feel a bit younger. Credit Jim Steinmeyer

I bring out what looks like a small brass pillbox and some old coins from a black silk bag and explain that this is what my uncle used to carry his coins instead of a coin purse. Performing an Okito Box routine, I demonstrate how he would use it with coins vanishing from the box, penetrating the box and appearing in the box. At the end, the box is passed out to the spectators to see if it would work for them... but when they take the lid off, unfortunately the box is now is solid and cannot contain any coins.

I then pull out a four inch square glass vase with eight blue marbles and nine white marbles that is wrapped in tissue paper. I explain how my father love to play marbles when he was young and had close to a hundred marbles. But he also had these seventeen marbles which were kept separate from the others. I divide the marbles evenly between the spectators, picking them up in pairs and giving each spectator one marble of each pair. The spectators decide who gets the last marble. I put it in the other person's hand and almost magically the marble travels from one spectator's hand to another. Credit Jim Steinmeyer.

I bring out the teapot again and, thinking that the spectators might not need another drink, pour them a hot cup of coffee with cream and sugar.

Finally, I bring forward the card box. I explain that I found this hidden in the ceiling above a closet in my grandparent's house. If you recall, my grandfather was a police officer. It contains the evidence from a police investigation of a murder. In a multiphase routine, the spectators play the part of the psychic who help the police solve what was known as the "silk stocking" murder that set a small community in Brooklyn on edge in 1935. At the end, the last item taken out of the box was a newspaper article that, when unfolded by the spectators, contains all of the actual psychic's choices that match the choices that were made by the spectators and the news of confession of the killer that both the real psychic and the spectators identified.
 
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