The update::
Hey all, so I had the show at the Movie theatre, and well, in short it went very well. I was reminded of some very important lessons though and learned some good lessons too! To clarify I was hired to do twelve 12-15 min “shows” in the preshow time before the movies begin. I planned the to do two effects: Guy Hollingworth’s “twins” (my name) (from Drawing Room Deceptions), and Gazzo’s Tossed out deck (Which I had never tried for an audience before).
The night before I decided to do all the prep for twins ahead of time. I had decided to use a jumbo deck, and quickly learned that the finish on the Jumbo cards is very different than a regular deck! They do not burn the same way, and as a result, the necessary preparations were fairly sketchy. I did the best I could and in the end I figured out a way to get the prep done right, but I’m glad I didn’t wait until the next morning to do the prep (which I would normally do because to prep one time takes a couple of seconds normally).
Well I arrived at 11:40am and was shown my greenroom where I was able to keep my gear. I set out all my stuff and got ready to do the first theatre; a 12:15 matinee. There was a whopping 5 people in there... Okay so both my routines went out the window. So I came in (and I was introduced for that particular one), so I just went up into the seats and did some close up card stuff for them. It was a lot of fun. One down.
The next bunch were all quite similar. One started out with three people and by the time the fifteen minutes were up, there was probably 50 people. I started with close up and by the end was trying to do stuff that more people could see. I did everything from ambitious card (with Paperclipped finish), to liquid metal. Thank goodness I game over prepared!
As the night went on, I got to do some larger groups. Those went very well for the most part. Tossed out Deck was actually awesome. Big gasps and lots of applause. It worked great as a “closer”. I might just try using that in my full show as a new closer, because there is a huge cue for applause built right in.
The first time I forgot one of the cards and there was one guy left standing. Awkward pause. It came back to me and I said the last card and the last guy sat down. Everyone went nuts. Funny enough, it worked to my advantage (thankfully). But the second time I did the TOD, I learned two valuable lessons. Two of the five people “lied” about the cards they saw. More likely they forgot their cards and just picked new ones in their head. So I only got three out of five. Grrr. But It let me know very clearly that I had to direct my audience to make sure they remember the cards they saw. No more trouble after that. The second lesson, is because for that one theatre I was using a lapel mic. After I got out I thought it was so funny that two people had just lied about their cards, and I really wanted to say something to someone. Two managers came up to me and asked how it went, and I said it went really good, and that the audience was really fun. I held myself back from saying what I really wanted to which was “two turkeys totally lied about the cards they saw!” a second later a person came out of the theatre and told me my mic was still on! Whew! Just goes to show that you should NEVER bad mouth someone EVER. They could have been standing right behind me, or worse, the whole theatre could have heard. Very unprofessional.
Finally, I did some lobby close up stuff between show times. I wasn’t sure how to approach people in that setting because when I go to a movie, I’m usually a bit late and my wife and I split up, one to get in line for food, and the other b-lines in to get the good seats. I had no clue that lots of people show up early and just hang out in the lobby (weird). So I hooked up the hummer card and played with that and make eye contact with passing observers. When someone stopped to admire I would smile and ask if they wanted to see more magic. They were all very enthusiastic. I did some magic for the line-ups, and that was pretty silly because I was walking along the outside of the rope as the line was moving, and people kept laughing about it. It was a bit funny, but a lot of fun at the same time. After performing for a couple of preteenagers in the food line, a random lady (with her husband) came up to me, pulled me aside by the elbow and said how much she appreciated that I wasn’t condescending or rude to the kids I was performing for (I’m guessing she was at the Fringe Festival here and saw Gazzo performing ;p ). Interesting and very direct comment.
So all in all everything went very well, but very different than I expected. Just goes to show that you have to always be over prepared, and always be professional. Good times. And now I have a huge stack of movie tickets (they paid half cash and half movie tickets!) ha ha!
Thanks for reading!
)I will let you know how it goes.
