theory11 — Magic Tricks & the World's Finest Playing Cards

Fooled by a theater production!

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YRAMagicMan

Nov 27, 2009
456
3
A local high school just finished their run of the musical Xanadu. The show was great, and quite hilarious, but there was one thing that completely baffled me. There was a scene where the lead guy, Sonny, went into a phone booth with Converse high-tops on and came out with completely different roller skates on. I watched the show twice and couldn't figure out how the change was made. I could always see his body from the waist up and he never bent down long enough to make such a switch. This wasn't supposed to be a magic trick, but for me, it was, and I was completely fooled.

My sister was a tech for the show and she told me how the switch happened. It turns out that the back of the phone booth opened to allow a stage hand to help Sonny make the switch completely unseen. I'm sure there's something we could all learn from this, but I don't feel like thinking that through at the moment. If anyone wants to draw out the lesson from this story, that'd be awesome, if not, that's cool too. I just thought I share this with you guys. (If this is inappropriate exposure, sorry. I figured that since this wasn't supposed to be a magic trick I'd share the method.)
 
The lesson is pretty simple: When the audience is entertained and engaged, they don't think about methods.
 
I've had this happen to me before, the first time was when I saw Beauty and the Beast live. It was just a high school but when the witch turned into a woman all of a sudden she was up in the air. I could see the flying rig but I did not see it coming. I still don't know the details.

On another occasion I saw a small play that was about a ghost who had died in a box. The main character opened the box the first time and the ghost got out. I remember there being thunder and lightning effects and the ghost "vanished". I thought she had run behind the curtain, but minutes later they opened up the box again and she was there! It surprised me. I saw the show the next noght and as it turned out she just got in the box when there was thunder and lightning. I just didn't catch it the first time :)
 
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