One of my favorite parts of being a magician is designing a show for a specific space.
As I write this, Stacy and I are finishing a three-week run aboard Celebrity Silhouette, where we performed two very different shows: a large theater performance and a much more intimate close-up show.
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Whenever I walk into a new venue, the first thing I do is find the worst seat in the house and imagine both of my grandmothers sitting there watching. They’ve both passed, but growing up they were always asking me to speak up.
I mumble. I’ve always mumbled. Two years of dentistry helped a little… but I still mumble. If people don’t understand what you are trying to say, they will stop paying attention really quickly.
On the Silhouette we had a giant screen that let us use cameras and visuals so every seat could follow the action. The shows were a blast, and guests talking to us afterwards usually means we did something right.
Now we’re heading back to one of our favorite places to perform: the Chicago Magic Lounge.
From the outside it looks like a laundromat, but through a hidden door you suddenly find yourself inside one of the most beautiful magic theaters in the world.
When we perform there, we do something a little different.
Stacy opens the evening with a featured mentalism set, and later I perform close-up magic in the 654 Club, a tiny room where the audience sits just inches away.
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Even though we perform separately, the shows connect. Stacy is the mentalist. I’m the magician. At one point in her show she discovers something I “forgot” and gives it to someone attending my show later that night. When the moment pays off later, the whole audience is in on the joke.
To me, that’s what magic is really about: storytelling.
If it’s done right, magic becomes the story people tell later — about the date night they planned, the hidden theater they discovered in Chicago, and the impossible thing they witnessed there.
Our shows work the same way.
In Cahoots is the show we’ve performed together for the past eight years, including our residency in Cleveland.
Delightfully Deceptive is our new show debuting this fall in Cleveland, where the focus shifts more toward my sleight-of-hand magic and Stacy’s ability as a mentalist. I can’t wait to perform it.
My favorite moment of the night at the Chicago Magic Lounge, though, doesn’t happen during my show.
It happens when I stand in the back of the room watching Stacy perform. I’ve never heard audiences react the way they do when she’s on stage. Within minutes she’s talking to someone she’s never met before, and somehow it feels like she knows everything about them.
Stacy is my everything. She’s the love of my life, my inspiration, and my muse.
At the same time… I can’t stand her. I can’t stand how good she is on stage. I can’t stand how naturally performing comes to her. And I really can’t stand how it constantly reminds me how much room I still have to improve.
Close-up is my natural habitat. Hers is the stage. I think that’s why we work so well together.
If you’ve never seen her perform, you really need to see her work to understand what I mean.
If you’ve never visited the Chicago Magic Lounge, you should absolutely experience it.
And if you’re planning a night out in Chicago, take a look at our upcoming dates March 19th - 22nd HERE.
We’d love to see you there.