3 Lessons Learned From My Oldest Show

“How did you defy physics?”

“Can you tell me how you made her float?”

“How did you do the floating thing?”

I smiled to the kids as I made my way down the hallway with my wagon in tow behind me.

I stopped and answered the students’ questions as they spoke to me.

They were sixth graders, and most of their questions were about the Chair Suspension they had just seen.

They were amazed by it and desperate to know its secrets.

I had just finished my “No Bully Zone” assembly. The end of the show features my Chair Suspension routine.

As usual, kids (and teachers) lost their minds for the effect.

And as usual…

I hated it.

I can’t stand the trick.

But I keep doing it. Because it kills.

Every.

Single.

Time.

I’ve been performing some version of my bully prevention show for decades. It’s been a little while since I performed it, though.

After this particular performance, a few interesting things stuck out to me.

So, in a complete flip of my previous article, today’s topic will be on three lessons I learned from a show I’ve been doing for 23 years.

Lesson One: If the audience likes a trick, keep doing it.

That’s the big one. As I said, I can’t stand the Chair Suspension.

To be fair, it has a LOT going for it:

• It’s basically angle-proof
• The volunteer looks like a star
• It’s easy to carry in
• It’s easy and quick to set up
• People ‘get’ what the effect is easily
• It’s a perfect ‘marquee effect’

So why do I hate it? Because it’s not a true levitation. The person never moves.

And it’s not even a true suspension. The second chair has to remain in place.

Every time I do it, I expect the kids to say, “Take away the second chair!”

They never do, and I’m amazed every time.

I just don’t think the trick looks very good.

I much prefer my Up Up & Away Levitation. The volunteer not only appears to float in the air without any support, but they also rise in the air several feet. It’s amazing.

I perform the Up Up & Away in my ‘just for fun’ show called “Magical Mayhem.”

But I keep performing the Chair Suspension for my bullying shows. I keep using it for two reasons:

First, I have a highly important word painted on the board the kid is laying on.

During the levitation, I pull away the board, showing the kid floating. And the entire audience can clearly see this important word, painted in large letters, on the board.

So the actual mechanism of the prop allows me to reinforce an important educational concept during the show.

The second reason I keep using it in this show?

The audience loves it.

Putting together a magic show really comes down to two things:

1. Does the trick fill a purpose in the show?
2. Does the audience like it?

That’s it.

On to lesson two…

Lesson Two: Never force a kid to do something they don’t want to

When I performed the Chair Suspension on this particular day, my first volunteer eagerly came up to the stage…

Only to clam up and become quite shy once there.

Kids get stage fright. They change their mind because whatever weird thing you’re asking them to do no longer sounds fun.

In this case, the girl I called up was on the spectrum. And she quickly became overwhelmed.

Rather than force the issue, off-mic I gently asked her if she would rather sit down.

After she went back to her seat, I continued with a second volunteer.

My client, the school’s principal, told me later she was impressed with how I handled the situation.

If you’ve been performing kids’ magic for longer than three days, you might believe that every kid you’ll ever encounter will want to be the center of attention in your show.

That’s a hard ‘no.’

Too often, I’ve seen magicians trying to cajole kids into completing the routine.

It’s always painful to watch.

Me? I only want kids onstage who want to be there.

Plus, it teaches kids an important lesson: it’s okay to say ‘no’ to things that truly make them uncomfortable.

Especially girls.

Without digging too deep into this topic, just imagine how valuable a lesson like this is to a child as they get older and start dating.

Lesson Three: Never underestimate simple magic

This bullying show was a little unusual. Usually, I perform one or two educational assemblies in a day for a school.

If I do anything on the same day in the evening with kids and their parents, it’s usually a ‘just for fun’ show.

But in this case, the client wanted my evening show to have educational content too.

For one of my anti-bullying messages, I use a mouthcoil.

And it’s always one of the biggest hits of the show.

For this show, it also got great reactions from the parents attending.

The school was a K-6 school. For the evening show, the client expected a mix of ages and parents to attend.

So I put together a show that included some silly visual magic for the young kids, some cooler mental magic-type stuff for the older kids, and some really powerful stuff for the adults.

At the end of the show, several parents told me the “thing with the tissue paper in your mouth” was the most amazing thing I did.

I love the mouthcoil.

I remember the first time I saw it: it was on Jeff McBride’s Magic on Stage DVDs about 26 years ago.

I was amazed then and thrilled that Jeff actually taught it.

It’s never lost its power over me.

But many magicians treat the mouthcoil as a quick throwaway, producing it out of a hat or a silk.

Me? I treat it like a grand illusion, using it to span the entire stage.

It may be old hat to magicians, but trust me, the mouthcoil still enthralls audiences of all ages.

When selecting material for your show, don’t dismiss simple, easy, visual magic.

On a personal note, this has been a fun issue for me to write.

My anti-bullying show was the first educational show I created after I moved from Pittsburgh to Niagara Falls 23 years ago.

Revisiting this show and mining lessons from it all these years later shows how we can still glean pearls of wisdom from something we’ve been doing for years.

Have a great week!

--Cris

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