Why Do You Perform magic?

When I arrive on a new project, it takes a few days to sync with the team and the performer. I used to feel incredibly insecure about these three days. I’d feel a deep need to offer good pitches and be instantly up to speed with the show's tone.

I’m a lot better and being patient with this process now. The main reason I’m more patient is that I feel I have much less to prove. I’m no longer overhearing people ask why a twenty-one-year-old is giving his opinions on a dangerous magic stunt. I deserve to be in the room, and the truth is I always did.

Over these first few days, there’s a lot of listening. A year ago, I wrote about important questions for every magician. These are the practical questions I ask when I arrive at a new TV project to enhance my ability to do my job.

1. What’s the most important thing about your show?

2. What’s the most financially important thing?

3. What’s the production schedule?

4. What’s the magic budget? (eek)

5. Do you treat magic like it’s real?

6. Is there a casting producer?

7. Is there an art director? (please god)

8. What are your favorite tricks?

9. Who are the other consultants?

10. Is there a location manager? (I beg you)

In the original article, I detailed why I ask these questions. At the time, I said performers could ask themselves these questions. I thought it might help you figure out who you are and what you want to perform. But the truth is, as I said, these questions are really just designed to get me to be good at my job.

As a consultant, being good at my job usually meant:

• Saving the production money.

• Making magic that always works.

If the magic was great, then that was a bonus.

There’s a reason I’ve spent the last five years working only as a writer on TV shows. Writers get to arrive when everything is fine and dandy. The production is sitting on a fat stack of cash, and blue skies are ahead. We’re working as a group in a world where everything is possible.

Then I sod off, in come the magic consultants, and they try their best to make whatever the hell we wrote up come to life. Months later, I sit down and switch on the telly to see what they managed to pull off.

As a writer, being good at your job usually means:

• Doing great writing.

Magic consultants will judge you on how realistically the things you write can be made into reality. This is something I know all too well. I can share utter horror stories from when I was consulting, and we’d spend months trying to build some shitty trick a flaky writer/consultant had pitched without a working method. It’s the worst.

Anyways, I’ve realized that there’s only one question you need to ask yourself as a performer. Why? That’s it — that’s the question. It’s the one I ask the most of the performers I work for. Besides wanting to know about their lives, like some kind of magic therapist, my usual line of questioning is a slow, repetitive “why?”

It’s funny; we rarely ask ourselves why. Kids will ask us, and it’ll be annoying. Therapists will ask us, which is equally irritating, but we’re paying them, so we can’t complain. You probably have a favorite trick, or a favorite performer, or a favorite audience — why?

These articles I send out each week. I view them as your weekly magic fix and my playground to explore new methods and ideas. It’s been pretty great. Writing these has forced me to research things that were new to me; it’s caused me to roleplay and ask questions, and form opinions. I’m still not great with opinions, and I still don’t care much for magicians.

The other day, I was with Rob Zabrecky, and someone asked me why I do not perform magic. I hate this question. I hate it. Do you know how hard it is to explain why you hate performing magic without making it sound like you’re shitting on your performing magician friends?

I don’t perform magic because performing isn’t what excites me about magic. Much like how Steven Spielberg doesn’t act because it’s not what attracts him to movies. That’s the best way I can say it before I rave about all the things that happen behind the scenes in magic that I adore. Writing on magic shows is the most fascinating and entertaining challenge. It’s brilliant; there’s variety, and I get to travel the world and use every inch of my brain.

Zabrecky handled the question of why I didn’t perform very well indeed. He just started going on about why he loves performing, what draws him to it, and why magic. It was a great way of dancing through the conversation.

I’m going to sound like a toddler or a well-paid therapist. But I encourage you to take some time after reading this article to ask yourself “Why?” five times. That’s right, five times…

Do this until you break down in tears or you reconnect with magic.

It won’t be easy. It’s not meant to be.