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SHOWMANSHIP
For
MAGICIANS
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Now that we are approaching the end of our discussion, it might be well to stop and take inventory of what has been developed herein without the accompanying reasons and explanation.
It has been made quite clear, I hope, that ultimate success as an entertainer, whether you wish to spend all of your time at it as a professional or whether your appearances are limited to strictly occasional shows, rests upon your ability to sell your-self. That selling yourself is more important than selling your magic. This holds true whether you perform for a lone friend at home, or in a theater seating hundreds.
Stress the qualities and behavior that will accentuate likable and audience-attracting characteristics. Emphasize humor, courtesy, liking for people, friendliness, happiness and good disposition. Be generous, accommodating, affable and patient. Show consideration for your assistants, both volunteer and professional. Try to get as many sympathetic ties with your audience as possible.
Don't try to sell them on how clever or smart you are. Don't be competitive or combative or vain. Don't boast or brag. Don't swear or lose your temper. During your performance don't be weak and ineffectual. Don't look for things. Don't fumble and mumble and forget. Don't allow any awkward pauses.
Know what you are to do, how to do it. And do it with the least delay, every time you do a trick.
Your grooming should be faultless. Your properties should be clean and well cared for. Treat your assistants as individual humans, not as automatons. Emphasize comedy and music and rhythm. Make your attack lively. Give your act lift, always.
See that your personal demeanor is excellent. Be at ease, confident and friendly. Stay away from arrogance and conceit.
Prepare your act thoroughly and well, and provide for smooth operation in all departments including music, lighting and staging, if it is a stage appearance.
Don't be familiar or fresh.
Be sure your act is well lighted and that the audience can see everything you do. Make certain they can understand every word and every expression.
Review the extensive lists of audience appeals again and again, even though your act may be complete. Every time you can add one of those magnetic sales points, add it, even if it takes some trouble.
Don't talk too fast. Don't talk too loud. Don't talk in a high-pitched, strained voice.
Don't use small props. Don't do anything that all can't see clearly. View your own props at a distance. Make certain they can be seen well. Often poor color combinations lower the visibility, through lack of contrast to accentuate other parts of the apparatus, or because the props are obscured because they blend with the background.
Don't do too many card tricks where identification of particular cards is the feature. This confines the routine to too few people.
Don't scowl. SMILE. Smile all of the time.
Don't turn your back to the audience.
Don't allow any waits, either before starting your act or during your routine.
When you bow, bow from the hips, not the neck. Bow forward, easily and gracefully, with your hands hanging easily at your sides. When you bow, don't bend your legs.
When you finish a number, make it clear to the audience you have finished. Await their applause. It will come.
As you reach a climax, gradually retard your talking and action, retarding your music as well, slower and slower. At the end, bring up both the music and the lights in a crescendo.
When you begin, start briskly and with eagerness. Try every device you can to "hook" the audience's attention, interest and liking. Try to do it from the very start.
During your routine, look at your audience and smile occasionally. Don't look at one place all of the time. Give your attention to many parts of the audience.
Show everything you are to use clearly and plainly. If there is any doubt as to whether the spectators know what you are to use, TELL THEM IN THAT MANY WORDS.
Where you are working to a wide audience, shift your position occasionally so that all may participate.
Before you include any operation that will take up time unnecessarily, be certain that the lull will be more than made up for in what follows. Things that take up time and are best left out of modern routines are such things as:
- Having spectators come up to the stage
- Borrowing things from the audience
- Giving out pieces of apparatus or properties for examination, practically all of this is unnecessary
- Having cards selected or other objects identified.
NEVER END YOUR ACT OR SHOW WITH A SPECTATOR ON THE STAGE. The necessary wait for his return to his seat will ruin your climax and the applause.
Here is a whole work on showmanship, yet so far it hasn't been defined. Really, it takes all of the words that have gone before to define it. That's what this book is, just a definition of showmanship.
From all of the foregoing it must be evident by now that showmanship is accenting and accentuating the important parts of your act, bringing out the points clearly and deliberately, just as you accent important words in your everyday speech. Showmanship is the portraying of likable characters, and likable human qualities. It is in emphasizing the difficulty of something so that it seems more difficult, thus emphasizing your skill. It is emphasizing the danger in the situation, so as to enhance your daring. It is in emphasizing every quality, comedy, music and all of the others, so that the audience will like you more.
Really, showmanship is merely skillful emphasis. It is skillful emphasis combined with good solid bedrock psychology.
One final reminder: As you would avoid "dated" or outmoded clothing, keep your presentation and all connected with it in the manner of the present fashion.
It is unnecessary to remind you, I hope, that you should never leave the sight of the audience during your performance, never leave the stage except for quick trips into the audience where you may be plainly seen and clearly heard by all.
And finally: THESE GENERAL RULES OF SHOWMANSHIP SHOULD BE APPLIED, INSOFAR AS POSSIBLE, TO ALL OF YOUR PERFORMING APPEARANCES, WHETHER FOR A SMALL GROUP AT HOME, AT A CLUB, IN A NIGHT SPOT OR AT A THEATRE.
THESE RULES ARE FOR MAKING MAGIC ENTERTAINING TO YOUR SPECTATORS UNDER ALL CIRCUMSTANCES.
Before we leave you, let's consider that act you are using now. Has it really been clicking? Does it get the audience response you desire? Or do other acts on the bill register far more strongly than you do?
Everything that has gone before in this book is directed at making your act, the very act you are now doing, more pleasing to your audiences. Incorporate those audience preferences in your present routine without further delay. Don't wait until you can add ALL of them. It isn't possible to include all of them in any act.
Include as many as you can, one at a time, if necessary. But start right in today broadening the appeal of your routine.
These features, explained to you in such detail, are not mere theories. They are FACTS. They are the real secrets of the show business. They are much more important secrets than the secrets you, as a magician, so preciously guard when you seek to prevent exposure of magicians' methods.
I can prove it to you, if you will let me.
Of course, it is necessary that I assume you can successfully present the tricks you use. I mean that you know how to operate them so that the effect desired is accomplished. I must assume, too, that you are technically capable of executing the various sleights. I must assume, too, that you can perform the tricks well, without uncertainty or blundering. If you can't, there are portions of this work that tell you how to overcome those difficulties.
So, Now you have a smooth, carefully and thoroughly rehearsed routine. You can do it well.
Tonight. Cut one of those tricks Out. Eliminate the weakest one, or the one that seems not to fit into the routine well.
If you have the time, and can do it without complicating matters too much, deliberately add one or more of the audience appeals. Put at any rate toss out at least one trick. Make the act one trick shorter than you think it should be.
Do it that way tonight.
I think you will agree tomorrow that the audience liked you better. I say this with much confidence because the average magician is on too long and does too much. All of them don't kill themselves off with their audiences, but fully ninety per cent do. That's why I think that one expedient will help you.
And tomorrow night, try eliminating another. Keep this up until you find the audience hasn't had enough of you. This FORCES applause because if they haven't had enough, they'll applaud for more.
It's just a suggestion that you might find helpful.
And now on getting applause:
The first rule, of course, is to make them want more because you haven't given them enough. The next rule is to let them know you are finished. BE SURE TO INDICATE UNMISTAKABLY THAT YOU ARE APPROACHING THE END OF YOUR TRICK OR THE END OF YOUR ACT. After you have shown them you are approaching the end, SHOW THEM YOU ARE NOW AT THE END. Then, SHOW THEM YOU HAVE FINISHED.
It is done in three steps:
- Showing the approach of the end;
- Indicating the end
- Clearly point out that you have finished.
Then deliberately wait for the applause. Wait ten seconds or more, if necessary. But wait. The applause will come. Look right at the audience. AND JUST WAIT. Even if you aren't good, someone will start to applaud and others will follow.
Will you try this also? Tonight?
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