Latest / The Magic Guys / Tobias Beckwith on Magic, Theater, and the Fourth Wall #254

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Tobias Beckwith on Magic, Theater, and the Fourth Wall #254 · The Magic Guys

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They're guys. They do magic. They are the magic guys.
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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 254 of the Magic Guys.
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Look, Nick's not here, so I'm sporting his haircut just for you.
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Hopefully everyone on the stream got that memo today.
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Doug, how you doing? Put your sunglasses on.
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Yeah put on the shades josh is
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uncrowned we're gonna be beaming i do
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yeah i that is that why you wear a hat so it
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doesn't shine when you're yes i do i
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do it to buffer the audience's glare from a huge head because that's about it
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man it's a little distracting it's a lot going on up there a lot of head especially
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like if we sweat like on a stage it becomes like a It's the worst Dorsi mirror ball Doesn't it?
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Well it's good to see you And you're in the Trick Supply store Hopefully Like
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hopefully For our sake The shop isn't busy Obviously we
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want you To be busy But in this moment We're glad That you've got time I'm excited
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For today's convo I hope we get 100% of me Here on this one Nothing else For
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my benefit I can't wait To talk to Tobias today Yes And we have some Friends
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in the chat Thank you for being here Already Yo yo yo We've got Scott Link as well.
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We've got Herbert. Welcome from Tasmania. Tim Askin. Fellas,
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what's up? This is, the crew is here, and for good reason.
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Doug, you've known about this gentleman for how long?
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So actually, Tamariah. When you worked with him. Yeah, he was one of the first
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guys I met when I came to town.
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My buddy Kevin Lapine says, hey, you got to come have coffee with all the theater people.
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We meet every Sunday over at Grouchy John's. And, and I went there and man,
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there's a number of luminaries, any which one of which could be talking to us
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today, but Tobias Beckwith was there.
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So I've known him now personally for about a year.
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Of course, he's been on my radar for maybe a lifetime.
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I mean, he's been active in the magic industry for, I guess,
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as long as I've been alive. So I've heard his name for my entire life in magic.
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Yeah. Happy to call this man a friend, a kindred spirit, just a swell,
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interesting fellow. Yeah.
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Well, with that said, I could not do an intro any better than that.
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Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Tobias Beckwith to the show.
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Wow. You guys know how to make a guy feel welcome. Thank you. Yeah.
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It's a pleasure to have you here, and thank you for getting the memo on the haircut. I like it.
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Yes. Now I feel like I've got too much hat on. Do it. You could lose the hat if you want.
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Not today. Not happening. Tobias, how are you? And thank you for staying up late for us.
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I am terrific. I'm in Portugal at the moment, and it is rather late.
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But I'm really excited and happy to be with you guys and been looking forward to it.
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That's amazing. And input. Oh, Doug has a fellow customer.
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A customer. He must have heard the podcast was starting, and now he's gone to look after him.
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So, Tobias, for those who maybe knew into magic and they're only scrolling on
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Instagram to watch magic, can you give us a little history on sort of how you
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got involved in the community?
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Sure, sure. Very quick and rough, and I do talk about that in the new book a little bit.
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Yes, excellent. The first book I ever bought was the first book of magic.
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And I got it home and I hid it under the desk so the other students wouldn't
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know and got it home and opened it up and found myself really pissed off because
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it was just full of a bunch of tricks.
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And I wanted magic powers. I wanted to be Merlin. And I thought,
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my God, this book's going to teach me.
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And but I learned some of the tricks and the teacher let me do a book,
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do tricks instead of actually a book report.
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And that got six years old. That got me hooked on performing and being,
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which later on went, I wanted to be an actor.
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After a little while, I got, I mean, like all of us, we're fascinated with tricks,
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but it didn't feel magical to me.
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It felt like tricks, like I'm a trickster.
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I'm fooling you. I know something you don't. And I didn't like that.
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But I loved the theater because first time I went to Broadway theater,
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to a big musical, it transported me. And big films changed me and changed my view of the world.
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And so that's what I did for years.
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I studied acting and directing.
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My master's degree is as a director in the theater and taught that at University
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of Pittsburgh for a couple of years and woke up one day and went,
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you've become the person you like to make fun of.
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That person who was teaching the thing they've never done professional.
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And I packed my bags and moved to New York. And instead of falling into the
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job as an actor or a director, which had been my dream A friend said,
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come run the box office I run the box office at the world's longest running
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musical, which was then the Fantastics,
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And I did that for about two weeks. And the general manager who was producer's
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son ran off to Australia or somewhere with his wife and the box office proceeds.
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And the producer called me upstairs and said, you're the general manager.
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I said, I don't even know what that is. He said, well, this is your desk.
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You pay the bills, you'll figure it out.
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And it pays $50 a week more than what you're making, which I think was $150
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at the week. This was the 70s.
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And I was paying $180 a month for my rent. So I said, okay, I'll learn it.
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And that's how I started to learn
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the business of the theater was the only thing that I hadn't studied.
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I'd studied directing and acting and stagehanding and lighting design and everything else.
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And I did that for about 10 or 15 years. I worked on Sweeney Todd on Broadway.
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I worked on Oak Calcutta, the Nudie musical.
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I introduced computers to Broadway offices. That's how long ago this was.
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People didn't use personal computers for things.
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First Ticketmaster installation on Broadway.
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But the computers took my job, which was company managing and theater managing,
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from eight or 10 hours a day down to two or three hours a day.
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And so I was managing dance companies on the side.
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And I got tired of begging for money. these amazing
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performers dance companies and you know you could sell out a concert and they
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were still ten thousand dollars short so it was all about grant writing and
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i got tired of grant writing i said you guys should be commercial you need to
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change your business model from,
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it's okay to be a non-profit but it's not okay not to make a profit.
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And so why don't you add magic in? And I had three choreographers I worked with,
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and they all went, eh, I don't think so. I don't think. Not for my company.
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So I had another choreographer who went on to choreograph touring productions for a chorus line.
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And he said, yeah, I'll do it. Let's do it. But we didn't have a company.
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So we had friends who were dancers.
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I was running Oak Calcutta in the Edison Theater, which was empty all day,
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every day. The producer and a theater owner said, sure, you can marry us here.
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I won't charge you. You work for me. if you
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know something comes of it i'll produce the show for you and
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so we started i i bob fitch was a
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friend i don't know if you guys know bob but you
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know who bob pitches marbito does that
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name ring a bell to you it's definitely
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a word i hear in the in the magic space but yeah i i
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got if you're a little young in about 40 broadway shows at the time he was playing
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rooster in annie the original production of Annie and he is a personal consultant
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directing many top tier magician shows through the last what five decades I know Scott J.
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Scott Berry was here last fall and he still is working with Bob out there in
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California and he said it was amazing even Bob is like 90 now he's like 90 yeah
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yeah but he was an eccentric dancer he he he helped.
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Liza Minnelli put her first nightclub act together and performed with her.
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He's really an interesting guy. He's done everything there is to do in show
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business. But he's an amazing magician and an amazing director.
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And he was helping us out with this project, and it wasn't going that well.
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I wanted story integrated with choreography, and the choreographer thought he
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would do dances in between the magic.
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And I said, no, it doesn't. And Bob was the advisor. He said,
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you know what? You need to meet Jeff McBride. Here's his phone number.
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And I said, why do I need to meet this Jeff McBride?
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Because he understands magic and movement and theater, and almost nobody else in magic really does.
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So I pick up the phone and I call Jeff McBride and it's, oh, 1230 in the afternoon.
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And the sleepy voice comes down
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and goes, oh, who is this? And why are you waking me at the crack of noon?
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Oh, I'm sorry. And then I explained what I was doing. He said,
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oh, well, that sounds interesting.
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I'll tell you what, I'm opening for Raquel Welch's nightclub act in atlantic
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city next week here's my manager's phone number i'll have him arrange for you
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to come down and see it so i did we my my friend and i went to see the show,
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and meet jeff afterwards and loved what he was doing he was basically an opening
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act at the time he had a really good 20 minutes i'm curious what was the show
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where was where was this Oh,
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it was at the Sands in Atlantic City,
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which is long gone, I think.
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So he would do like 20 minutes before that. She had a, yeah,
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she had a, a big band and she sang and danced and he was the opening act,
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which he'd been doing for a while.
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He'd been opening for Tina Turner and all kinds of people.
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Fancy. But we talked and I said, you know, you've got a, you've,
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you've got a really good act and I like it and I like where it's going,
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but it needs some tuning. and do you have an interest in having a full show?
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Because I'm working at this theater and I've got a producer,
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and if we had a full show for you, I think it could play on Broadway.
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And he said, yeah, I'm interested. Why don't we have lunch next week?
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And we started going out for beers late at night, because at this point Jeff
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was spending his afternoons,
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hanging out with Jeff Sheridan in Central Park, and then he was going to do
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two shows at club ibis which was a supper club,
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and that was over at 10 and he would go down to mostly
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magic a little tiny magic club in the village and
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perform the 11 o'clock set down there then he'd
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go back uptown there with a dive bar called
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the triple in where all the musicians hung
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out because it was just across the street from big music studio and
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he'd go on at 2 2 a.m they had
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a little tiny stage in the corner like a stand-up comedy stage
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and do a set then and this was
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why at noon every day he was barely awake because he
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had just spent 18 hours performing
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basically the night and he did this day in day
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out day in day out and that's how we got good but we would hang up and talk
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hang out and talk magic for two hours before the triple in thing drink two or
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three beers and he got me really deeply involved and we talked about what we
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wanted a magic show to look like,
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how theater and magic went together and all this stuff. And that's what got me hooked.
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After we worked on the show for about a year and a half, we'd actually had a
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Broadway backers audition.
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His manager at the time, who was Billy, what was Billy's last name?
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I'm forgetting right now.
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But he was actually Raquel Welch's manager and Billy Barnes,
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his name was, and Tennessee Williams' manager.
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And I mean, he was a high-power guy. But this was the era of AIDS.
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He got AIDS and took a year to die of it.
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And that's when Jeff asked me to manage him.
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And when we started out, the contract said, you can manage other artists but no other magicians.
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And so I had a juggler I worked with for a while, and Jeff. And when was that?
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That would have been like mid-'90s maybe?
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No, late-'80s. Earlier, 80s. We met in 86, and I think I signed the management contract in 1980.
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And the first thing we did navigating his book you'd be just managing these
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gigs he's working at the casinos well,
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the idea was always that I'd produce his show,
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and in the meantime you know how to write a contract you know how to manage
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something you know how to stage manage if I need that you know how to do and
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basically anything he didn't do on stage I got to be the guy to do which suited
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me just fine Because when I was on Broadway,
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I was a manager, and that means you're allowed to write checks and count the box office tickets.
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And don't talk to the actors, and don't talk to the stagehands,
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because everything is in straight union lines.
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So suddenly I was allowed to do everything I wanted to do again.
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I could write scripts, I could do lighting design, I could schlep props,
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I could learn to pack the show.
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I was in heaven. It was great. Yeah.
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And that's why we have Tobias on here, because he's managed to put his brilliance into a book.
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Now, he's authored many books, but his current one, which is up for release,
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is called Wired for Wonder.
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We'll talk more about it as well, but just as a prelude for everyone watching right now.
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Wired for Wonder, the theatrical science of magical performance.
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You can see he's been doing this for decades now.
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And if you're watching the stream of this, the QR code in the top corner is
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how you can go and you can order that book straight away from Amazon.
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And you can start getting this creative goodness that's inside Tobias' brain.
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You can have it delivered.
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Speaking of directing and Jeff McBride, you sent us through a video of one of Jeff's performances.
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Is this a good time to have you look us through that? Let's talk a little bit
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about setting up what this book's about in the annualism before we do that.
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Because it's about all magic is theater.
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Theater is defined by there's a living person on one side of the stage and there's
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a living person watching.
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Movies are not theater because the audience is live, but the actors aren't,
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or the actors are live in front of the camera, but they're not in the same room.
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There's no real interaction.
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And so if I'm doing a trick for you across a cafe table, that's theater.
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By the same token, if I'm doing an illusion, Siegfried and Roy doing an illusion
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act in my showroom in Las Vegas for 1,500 people, that's theater.
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But there are many kinds of theater.
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There's strolling magic, there's parlor magic, there's the magic castle,
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there's all these different—there's restaurant magic, street performing,
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but they're all different kinds of theater.
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And so the rules that apply to theater, the tricks you learn in theater,
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can be applied to any magical performance.
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And that's kind of the theme of the book. But one of the things that really
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struck me as I started to write the book, and I think about this more and more,
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there's a lot I've thought of that's not in the book yet.
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Is that magic is unique in the theater until recently
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until people started doing interactive shows and that
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we break the fourth wall usually you go to the
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theater they bring down the lights on the audience we
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sit back and we watch and they carry on a story on stage which we can watch
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and we kind of interact with we laugh we laugh whatever but in magic we say
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no no you you don't get to sit out there and interact with your arms folded.
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We're going to pull you on stage.
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We're going to walk out into the audience. You're going to become a character in this play.
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And that is super powerful because no other form really used to be able to do that.
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And it's fascinating because you could tell a story.
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We all make sense of the world with stories. Stories are what change our mind
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because they have emotion involved in them, not just logic.
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So if I can draw you into my story world, I can persuade you to change your
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life in ways that just don't happen any other way.
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Goosebumps. And so magic can be that powerful.
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It can also, you know, it's fine if it's just a trick too. Like if I'm an artist,
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I can draw Charlie Brown or I can draw the Mona Lisa or the Sistine Chapel.
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There's nothing wrong with any of those things, but let's not deny the power of the Sistine Chapel.
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Which is actually the reason I'm in Europe right now.
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I want to go hang out in Florence, in Milan, and see where Leonardo was in Michelangelo.
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Makes sense to me. Wow. Yeah, I feel like I could just sit here and listen to you talk forever.
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Let me run it back a little bit about when you had met Jeff and you guys started
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working together, you're managing your stuff and you're working on the show.
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Uh, when did that come to fruition? I feel like we're going to watch this video.
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It's part of the show. So let's talk about what the show was.
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We did the first show off Broadway called mask myth and magic at a place called
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the ballroom, which I think we ran two months there and mostly sold out. It was a nightclub.
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It was kind of a supper club, nightclub, a nightclub attached to a theater or
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to a restaurant, but it had theater seating.
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I think we seated 120, 130 nice small stage.
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And his theme was the elements, the magic elements, if you can earth, air, fire, water.
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And he did magic with each one. Yeah. Did a typical piece and he worked with
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Bob Fitch. We hired Bob to direct him.
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And it was the first time he had worked with a director like that.
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And kind of the first time Bob had directed somebody else doing a magic show.
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Interesting. And it was interesting because Jeff was already tied into every
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piece must have meaning, it must have a story.
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And he and Bob and I sat around for two days with Bob and I talking him into
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keeping the cards in the show, the card manipulation routine,
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which he's known for and for teaching.
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Because he said, well, it's the only thing that doesn't have a story,
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it doesn't have a reason to be there.
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And between the three of us we finally came up with it's the celebration and,
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You've put on each of these four masks and learned each of these elements, and you've succeeded.
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And so at the end of this, you get to show off and celebrate.
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And that was the structure of the show.
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But it did real well. We got great reviews, New York Times reviews,
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and we got hired almost right away to go to Atlantic City for a three-month
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run, I think, with that show.
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And this is a time where Magic was not like the world's most favorite art form.
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There was only a handful of guys even performing, you know, stages,
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really, I would say, at that time. Would you agree? Yeah.
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I think that's about the time.
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I think we were at the ballroom before Penn & Teller opened at the West Side Theater. There you go.
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And then they played. Copperfield might have barely been getting started.
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I'm curious, did you see Doug Henning's show? Did you see the magic show on Broadway?
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I didn't see the magic show. I did see Merlin. A friend of mine was company
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manager for Merlin because we were already doing Sweeney Todd at that point. That was 80. Yeah.
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And yeah, I had seen and I got to hang out with Charlie Reynolds,
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who was Doug Henning's illusion consultant and did a lot of Broadway shows.
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So I learned a lot about it, but I never actually met Doug or hung out.
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I'm curious for the magicians watching, what is the mindset when you like,
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how did you decide that you wanted to be the one that helps create the show
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rather than the person on the stage?
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Like, do you find that there's actually, you can be more creative being that
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person standing back or, because, you know, magicians, we have a tendency to
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want to be in the spotlight.
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So like, how did that come about?
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Well, humility, really, because I do perform magic.
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I enjoy standing in front of an audience, but I hang out with Jeff McBride and
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Marco Tempest and I'm just, I'm not going to do car manipulation after Jeff does.
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I don't want to pretend I could be that good because I haven't done magic 24-7 for 40 years.
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And both he and Marco have that kind of skill and that kind of creativity.
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So I felt like I told myself anyway, and it may have been a justification,
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that I can actually have a bigger effect on the world of magic and people loving
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magic by supporting these guys and filling in the gaps.
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Where they were you know you were
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right you continued to work with jeff for decades correct like
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how long were you working with jeff mcbride let's see
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i'm 73 now i retired when i was 70 so until three years ago yeah wow the last
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shows i really produced for him were during the pandemic We did Zoom shows and
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kind of learned to do that.
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Yeah. And what message would you say to magicians trying to put on their own
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shows of like how important it is to have a director? Yeah.
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I think it's tremendously helpful. Don't wait to perform if you don't have a director.
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The most important thing for a magician is to get in front of an audience as
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much and as often as they can.
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And even if they're awful, because you learn by being awful, you learn to be better.
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And well that's one of my favorite well actually one
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of our slogans at jeff's school is fail forward fast
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just get it on its feet in front
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of people and you'll find out
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how to make it better they will tell you as
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soon as you can get a director do but there aren't a lot
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of directors i i talk about working
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with the director in the book and the problem
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i had as a director because i learned to direct
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magicians after i had directed musicals and
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plays and things typical director
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starts out with a script and then they get a cast and
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then they get with a magician the
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magician probably has some idea of
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a script they already have the technical stuff
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and the technical stuff is going to get in the way
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of what you think you want them to do as a director i
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can't say well now now turn to the
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right and go down there well i can't do that because there's things hanging on my
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coat and the audience will see it or no
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i can't stand back on the stage because
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they'll be able to see into the bowls from the you know
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there are technical reasons that the magician can and can't do things and you
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have to you have to appreciate them you have to appreciate when they're real
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and when they're just an excuse and you can you can find a way to work around them so it's.
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A lot of magicians work with a director and go, I can't work with a director.
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They don't understand magic.
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Because the director has to meet more than halfway. I have a suggestion for
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people that might not have a director or some creative person to guide them.
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Well, shucks, when you're buying Tobias' book, Wired for Deception,
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you might take a look at this one, which will give you kind of a guidebook towards
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having an original point of view about the presentations you're creating.
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This is beyond deception thank you
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yeah yeah and and directors can learn
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the the thing to do is find
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somebody you like as a director who shares a vision
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with you and teach them how to direct a
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magician you got to meet halfway and bob
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bob fitch could do it right away because he had worked as a magician when he
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was a young guy bob could do anything he'd juggle on the streets he would do
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this and then one day i asked him i said bob you can do how come you can do
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everything he said tobias i got seven kids i can't afford to be out of work for a single day so.
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You know and but he understood before he started directing magicians what it
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was to be a magician and often a good good director or a another magician can be your best director,
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So, wow. Somebody that's been there and knows what they're really looking at. Yeah.
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All right, let's take a look at this clip. I want to see Jeff McBride do some
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magic and Tobias talk about the fourth wall.
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Yeah, the reason I wanted to show this is it's such a good, and this goes beyond
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the book, because the book talks about breaking the fourth wall.
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And I've been thinking just in the last few weeks about we get to actually seduce
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the audience into the story.
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To actually entice them into our side of the fourth wall.
27:16
And that is both fun and really powerful.
27:20
And Jeff does that in this piece. This is kind of what it's about.
27:23
It's a miser's dream, but it's really an initiation. So yeah, go ahead and run.
27:30
He's moving into the audience for the first time in the show.
27:35
He's like, okay, you're not the one.
27:40
I'm looking for, and they don't know what he's looking for yet.
27:43
They don't know somebody's coming to the stage.
27:46
They just know something weird is going on in the audience. And the magician
27:50
is amongst them for the first time.
27:53
That's not supposed to happen in the theater.
27:56
The actors stay on the stage.
28:00
And see, he's actually enticing the young boy to come with him.
28:05
On to the stage, where the audience doesn't belong on the stage. But there he is.
28:11
And now he's part of the story. And he has no idea why he's up there.
28:16
But he knows he's got to play along. And this is one of those places,
28:20
Doug, you talk in the interview in the book about you've got to take control.
28:25
This is a lesson in taking control.
28:28
If you're that kid, you're getting pushed around. You have no choice, but you're having fun.
28:35
Somehow you know right away he's going to make you a hero.
28:38
And now, not only is the kid on stage, he's the only thing on the stage.
28:44
He is the story at this point. and the magician has totally turned the tables
28:49
the kid's the star from here on out,
28:55
it's a joke and the kid didn't know what was going to happen.
29:03
And he's teaching the kid how to take his day.
29:09
The kid's fully part of the act at this point and it gets better.
29:15
And at that point, he specifically addresses the audience and brings them into
29:20
the story. This is the time when you applaud.
29:24
And notice the audience is a character now just telling the audience what to do.
29:30
This is riveting podcast content, fellas. Oh, yes.
29:36
Josh, have you seen this routine perform live? No, I haven't had the pleasure.
29:41
I was going to say about a thousand times.
29:45
You know who gets the applause? The kid gets the applause. Hmm.
29:57
Man i wish i would have learned a miser's dream routine in my life like such
30:02
a good effect yeah like what i noticed and i've never seen so much showmanship
30:07
and stagecraft put into yeah.
30:21
And he directs the audience. So it's just such a good example.
30:26
Yeah, thank you. I had nothing to do with putting that piece together.
30:30
Some of his other pieces I've directed, but that one is just,
30:33
it was done before I met him.
30:36
In evolving, I recall seeing this routine maybe 10 years ago at an Alana Harvest
30:41
or something. He has a magic wand presentation now.
30:45
He gifts the child a magic wand.
30:48
In the set and as tim
30:50
asking is saying like the other thing people aren't realizing is this is all
30:54
happening with no words there's no speaking at all yes in the routine yeah yet
31:00
the whole story is conveyed perfectly it's very clear how do you how how do
31:06
you feel about silence in a magic show Tobias,
31:09
you think it's a viable alternative to perform silently for an hour?
31:14
You can 30 minutes music. We, we, when we took Jeff show to Hong Kong,
31:22
we did the first hour with no speech second hour.
31:26
He talked, but if you don't speak, you can perform anywhere. Right.
31:33
If they don't have to understand English, and that was part of the secret of
31:37
success and the business success.
31:39
Because if people weren't buying in America, we could go to China.
31:44
We could go anywhere and do an hour magic show without ever opening his mouth.
31:50
It was funny, the first show we did, The Mask, Myth, and Magic,
31:55
he did not speak until the end of the show.
31:59
And Jeff had not spoken on stage before that.
32:03
And he had a hard time getting comfortable speaking on stage.
32:09
Well, he fixed that. Soon after that, he went on tour with the Radio City Rockettes.
32:17
And they were in a different city every two nights.
32:21
And so we booked him for magic lectures every place he went.
32:26
And he had to talk for two hours. And after that, he had no problem talking
32:31
on stage ever again. Yeah.
32:35
That'll do it. I've had the pleasure of performing with him at Wonderground
32:39
a few times over the last couple months. And man, that guy is just a machine.
32:43
What an unbelievable presence.
32:46
And I love, you know, more often than not, he breaks the fourth wall on his entrance.
32:51
Like he comes in through the crowd quite often when he's performing.
32:55
That's a rarity, right? Entering the stage from the audience.
33:00
Love it. Yeah. And when we play casinos, even when he and Eugene and Abby did
33:06
the show in a number of places, Vegas and other, and they would greet the audience when they came in.
33:13
He'd be at the door, and as you came in, he'd pull cards out of his mouth and say, Welcome.
33:19
Cool. And partly to warm up, excuse me, I'm sorry, partly to warm up the audience,
33:24
And partly because that's when he figures out who his volunteers are going to be.
33:28
There is no such thing as volunteering in a McBride show.
33:33
He's decided before the show ever starts if you're coming to stage or not.
33:38
And he's decided because he has talked to you in the audience and done magic
33:43
for you and found out, are you too drunk to walk? Do you have all your limbs?
33:49
What kind of an attitude do you have are you going to be a problem are you going
33:53
to be fun or and that gives him a chance to do that and then you know three or four minutes before,
34:00
the curtain is going to go up he goes back and somebody else
34:03
is still working the audience and that's when he loads up all
34:05
his masks and gets ready for the mask act but but he he really prefers being
34:12
out there in advance i can't help but thinking him jeff mcbride and marco tempest
34:20
are very different performers very different styles yeah
34:26
And yet you work with both of them. Do you have to switch to a different part
34:30
of your brain when you're thinking of different, those types of different shows?
34:34
Like Marco Tempest is very much like, like my, you know, I haven't watched him
34:40
live, but the pieces, the amazing pieces I've watched gives the feel that, you know,
34:45
he's showing us the future or like, you know, the technology is magic.
34:49
And so it's very different.
34:51
Yeah. What are your thoughts on working with two separate types of pieces?
34:54
I loved it because it spread me in different directions.
35:01
I've learned a lot about business from Marco because he had been working corporate shows for a long time.
35:08
Most of his work was corporate shows.
35:11
He hated the idea of having to do the same show again and again.
35:15
He said, I don't know how these guys like Jeff do three weeks in a casino or
35:20
three months in a casino doing the same show twice a night. It would drive me nuts.
35:25
I like creating a piece and then adapting it and the challenge of going out
35:32
and making it perfect the first time, which is the corporate world,
35:35
especially when you're working at the end.
35:38
But you also get to work with the best lighting people and the best stage people,
35:44
and you get to hang out with CEOs and people that are— it's a different world
35:50
than the casino or theater show.
35:53
And I loved the breadth of that.
35:57
I'm a bit of a nerd myself in terms of the tech, and I've never met anybody
36:04
like Marco, who could just, he could learn a new programming language in a week. He could.
36:10
Know get an idea for and he would build teams he's
36:14
he's a director's fellow at mit media lab
36:17
he worked for he just finished six or eight years at jet propulsion laboratory
36:22
doing special projects for nasa he you know and the guy just well he's still
36:30
an active performer is he performing as a magician? He speaks.
36:35
He'll do talks, which include.
36:40
Basically, in 2008, we had a come to Jesus meeting when the big financial crisis
36:48
happened because we were making a lot of money,
36:52
$50,000 to $100,000 for a corporate gig because it was all custom.
36:57
And we would create all the video for the in-between things because the video
37:03
he created looked better than what the big event producers produced just because
37:08
he was a better designer and he had a better team and whatever,
37:12
and so we'd make them look better than they
37:15
were and he would open the meeting and close the
37:18
meeting and do three spots in the middle of these big general sessions
37:21
or products launches and it
37:24
was always different but it was always kind
37:27
of the same there were maybe eight pieces and
37:30
we'd do five of them customized so you
37:33
know there there was a piece where his hands go into a video screen
37:36
well the hands in the video screen always do something it's originally a ball
37:41
but it could be your logo hewlett packard or it could be the test tube with
37:45
your drugs in it so and so and it comes out of the screen and now you feel like
37:49
we created a whole show just for you highly customized and you're willing to pay for it.
37:57
And, you know, if we got paid $50,000 or $60,000, we probably spent 25 of it creating the show.
38:06
And, uh, interesting, but all of a sudden that work was gone because a lot of
38:13
companies got bailed out and they were seen to be doing these big events in
38:17
Las Vegas and wasting money.
38:19
I know magicians who got hired and handed a check backstage saying,
38:24
I'm sorry, you're not going on, but we're paying it because there are reporters in the audience.
38:29
And if they see us paying a big name act, we're going to be in the headlines
38:34
tomorrow for wasting the money.
38:38
Wow and so at that point i said marco
38:41
we're not going to this is going to dry up for a
38:44
while but speakers are they're still paying speakers and he went out himself
38:49
got himself booked for a tedx talk in japan within three weeks and put the whole
38:54
thing together and since then that's mostly what he's been doing he'll you can
39:00
hire him to come do a talk on innovation or team building or whatever,
39:05
with a piece of magic that he has created and he'll talk about building the team to create,
39:10
you know the the own piece you probably that's the thing you
39:12
see him do mostly now and that was two or
39:16
three different teams that he worked with one in japan one at
39:18
mit one in switzerland and they
39:21
developed things that are now i yeah
39:24
if you know and then i still send him a video of the
39:27
dragon flying over the big celebration in china and go marco see what you did
39:33
god because other people have taken the things he did and run with them and
39:41
they they have become he didn't used to let me book him bill him as a magician.
39:47
But I am a digital poet who uses graphics and video and illusion techniques
39:54
to show you what the future might be like in a few years.
40:00
That's great, except the future comes and then you have to create something brand new.
40:05
So virtual reality came along and we don't do virtual reality anymore.
40:10
And then it was augmented reality and we did that for a while.
40:13
And then it was, you know, image mapping.
40:17
And we did that for, and it whole act changed every, every few years because
40:23
it was about the future and the future. That's a rough road to hoe, actually.
40:26
Like, you know, you get a good classic impact. You can just do the same 12 minutes your whole life.
40:33
But you're the future magician. Look out.
40:37
Yeah. If you can obviously clock it. But that Manip Act is probably not going
40:42
to make 50 or 100,000 bucks a gig. Yeah, true story.
40:46
You know, ever. And, you know, if you have an original point of view,
40:50
you got to do your thing, you know? And for Marco, that's what he did. Yeah.
40:54
He liked the challenge. I can't imagine what he's working on now.
40:57
And it was challenging and fun working with him.
40:59
Yeah. I think at one point he was working. He's kind of retired.
41:04
Right. Yeah. I mean, what a fortunate place to be in.
41:09
Because he really doesn't need to work anymore he's living in zurich yeah he's
41:14
he i mean i i followed him out of out of the united states at a certain point
41:19
he's like i'm sorry it's too crazy here he and his wife were about to buy a
41:22
townhouse in brooklyn and the whole first first trump.
41:28
Next administration happened and he said yeah you know i think i'm going to
41:32
move back to zurich yeah yeah he can he can build his own he was an immigrant he,
41:40
And now he's built his own little village of robots. Smart man living in Switzerland.
41:46
Let's go Switzerland. Yeah. So, so wide for wonder, what can, what do you think?
41:52
Yeah. The everyday magician. Yeah, one of his TED talks. What happened to us?
41:56
Yeah. We vanished for a minute.
41:58
Yeah. Nope, we got you back here. We're bringing it together.
42:01
Wide for wonder, what can people expect to learn from it? And what's a good
42:05
reason for picking it up for the everyday magician?
42:09
First of all, the understanding that you can use all the tools of the theater.
42:14
I always talk about art is about making choices. If you're a painter,
42:19
you get to choose color and your subject and the size of your canvas and whatever.
42:24
Novelists choose words or poets and stories. In the theater, you get everything.
42:31
You get the language, you get the story, you get the whatever.
42:35
And it's about making choices.
42:38
Choices get made whether you think you're making them or not.
42:41
People are seeing the way we're all dressed here tonight, whether we chose to
42:45
be dressed this way or not.
42:46
People see the way we're lit, whether we chose it or not.
42:51
So it's a double-edged sword. You get to make the choice and affect how it's
42:58
going to affect your audience.
43:01
You shoot yourself in the foot because you forgot, you know,
43:05
you wore the wrong thing or you used the wrong language or you said something
43:10
political in the middle of something that shouldn't be political, you know.
43:15
And so it's about those choices. But there's also a long chapter on acting.
43:22
Well, what does acting mean to a magician? Because we're used to, here, take a card.
43:28
No, why do you want me to take a card? Who are you as a character?
43:32
Why do you want me to do this? Are you my friend? Are you an antagonist?
43:37
Are you a wizard or are you somebody that's just tricking me?
43:42
Why do you want me to do this? And actors know this from minute to minute.
43:47
This is what action means. We call actors because they act and the action they
43:52
take is I try to make you feel something.
43:55
I'm trying to get from here to over there and there's 10 things in the way I
43:59
want to get past this one and then I want to get past that one and I have to
44:03
do an action for each of them so as a magician,
44:07
as a character you are a character if they're watching you whether you've chosen
44:12
a character or not they're getting a response from a character you might as well choose who you are,
44:20
and the book will teach you how to do that.
44:23
To lay it out in ways that are understandable. It's still nice if you can have
44:28
a teacher or a director or take an acting class, but it'll get you on the right
44:33
road for that kind of thing.
44:35
It also talks about, you know, there's a great interview with this guy,
44:39
Doug Kahn, about how to succeed as a street performer, or my friend Phil Ackerley,
44:46
about what it takes to be a family performer?
44:48
And what are the theatrical considerations?
44:51
How do you deal with a different venue every day? How do you deal with parents
44:57
and grandparents and whoever's in the room with you?
45:01
How do you deal with the props and getting your props into the space and setting
45:05
up a space that people can relate to?
45:08
Because every form of theater is different, and the book talks about how you
45:13
make those choices, what's important in every case.
45:17
So, it's not a very big book. I mean, it's only that. But I think it will help
45:24
people be better magicians, be,
45:26
It's a mighty tome. I want to gift this volume to one of our listeners.
45:31
I consider doing a like a StreamYard tool giveaway.
45:35
And you know what I want to do, though, is make a personal choice here.
45:38
I want to give this book to Tim Askin.
45:40
I feel like Tim is the one that shows up every time. He's always here for us.
45:45
I'd like to be here for Tim today and send Tobias this book.
45:49
Is that cool to everybody?
45:51
I think that's an exceptional idea. Yeah. Yeah. Congrats, Tim. Tim? Oh, yeah.
45:57
No, shoot me your address in the Facebook Messenger, and I'll get you this book on the way.
46:02
And sorry, everyone else for not getting a fair crack at it,
46:04
but Tim is like numero uno there all the time.
46:08
So let's do it. You know what? I tell you what we'll do.
46:10
Again, if you do want to order the book there right now, if you're watching
46:14
this, we have the QR code in the top corner of the screen.
46:17
But you know what? I reckon the Magic guys are going to buy another copy,
46:21
and we're going to give it away to someone who might not have been here live.
46:25
So how about on Instagram, where we posted the photo of Tobias' episode,
46:30
go and comment the word wonder.
46:33
Time between now and next week's episode and then
46:36
we'll also pick one person from that and announce
46:39
it in next week's episode so if you're
46:42
not here live go find the post comment wonder
46:45
we'll pick someone for next week as well and that way we
46:48
can have it sent directly from amazon to wherever
46:51
you are in the world and i think
46:54
while we're talking about tobias's books and we talked about this
46:57
one on creating magic making your
47:00
point of view a little bit more original and this
47:03
is a great book and wired for wonder there's more the
47:06
one i really want to mention before we're done here is beyond applause and in
47:10
this book tobias lays out his business mindset there it is marketing and management
47:17
for the independent performer what what a great volume this is it's like a workbook
47:23
for how to be a professional.
47:26
And this is information that is often lacking from magicians trying to do this kind of stuff.
47:31
And if you do try to find a book like this, it's going to be expensive,
47:36
like pricey to get this kind of information that's in here.
47:39
So I'd easily recommend any of Tobias's writings, but if you don't have this
47:43
book beyond applause and you're looking to work as a professional for the low
47:47
asking price, is it even 50 bucks? It's not even that, is it?
47:51
How much is this book? I think it's even, you talked to me into raising the price. I did raise it.
47:57
Yeah, well, you raised it right now. You get it for $31.97.
48:01
Yeah. So, all right. We do have a follow-up question here from someone who has
48:07
purchased your books in the past.
48:09
From Herbert, just a follow-up question to your career. Now that you're retired,
48:13
what is your day-to-day magic play like?
48:16
What is your day-to-day magic play like? That's it.
48:20
I've been working on a talk for a number of years, which I did for a bunch of
48:25
rotary clubs, but I've expanded it.
48:28
Theme is you can change the world and because reality isn't real it we every
48:34
one of us makes it up so the first piece in the show is demonstrating why reality
48:39
really isn't real using a couple of magical effects,
48:44
And that one I've got down, but I'm working on a professor's nightmare,
48:49
which I talk about in here, which I'm not very good at.
48:53
So I'm practicing that a little bit every day and working up a whole different
48:59
presentation than what's in the book.
49:02
So I'm working on that. I have two other segments.
49:06
I used to teach public speaking, too. and one of the things is people walk away
49:12
with three things, three memories.
49:14
Any talk you see, a week later, you remember three things. So what are the three
49:18
things you want to get across? And I'll only do three.
49:22
And this is one of them is reality isn't real. Reality is partly what's out there.
49:27
We can change that by engineering and science.
49:30
It's partly your belief system.
49:33
My reality is different from yours.
49:35
Maybe for me, Jesus makes everything happen, and for you, there is no God. I don't know.
49:42
And we live in different worlds. Those belief systems, maybe I was told,
49:49
you'll never be good enough.
49:51
And you were told, you're going to rule the world.
49:54
And we live in different worlds, slightly different. I'm red, green, colorblind.
50:00
Most people see a different world than I do.
50:04
Our realities are different. You can change your reality.
50:09
There's like Mohandas Gandhi liked to say, become the change you want to see in the world.
50:14
So there are ways to change it by getting in touch with your subconscious, basic hypnosis stuff.
50:22
There are ways to change beliefs.
50:25
There are ways to change what you learn. There are ways to change all the,
50:29
and there are little magic demonstrations for them. One of my things is question everything.
50:34
And I use the optical illusion with the two tables.
50:39
One looks long and skinny and one looks short and fat and you take the tops
50:43
off on both and they they're interchangeable and you would never believe it.
50:48
So I'm, I'm working on a lot of little pieces like that and just starting to
50:52
find places to do the talk again. I haven't done it for a couple of years.
50:56
That that's what I'm really focused on. Do we have a graphic for the performer's
51:00
mindset? Did you send that as well for us to flash on the screen?
51:04
Cause I'm getting, no, well that, I'm getting fond memories of, Okay.
51:11
Well, that's another Tobias Neckwith, Jim, you could look at,
51:14
because that's most of the stuff you were just talking about, right?
51:17
Creating your own reality and the perception, and that's in your next-to-last
51:22
book, The Performer's Mindset, another winner.
51:26
Well, yeah, the performer's edge.
51:29
The performer's edge. It was designed for, not for magicians,
51:32
it was designed for business people and people in startups who feel stuck.
51:36
It's like, you want to learn to think different? Here are some ways to think different.
51:41
As an actor, I can be one person in the wings and 10 seconds later I can walk
51:46
on stage and be King Lear.
51:49
How do I do it? You can learn to do it.
51:53
And people talk, you know, we've all heard fake it till you make it.
51:56
But one of my favorite movies was called Moon Over Peridot, Richard Dreyfuss.
52:02
He's an out-of-work, slimy, down-on-his-luck actor who happens to look like
52:08
the dictator of a banana republic.
52:12
The dictator gets sick. He gets hired to go in and portray the dictator for
52:18
three days. the dictator dies, and now he's in position to be the leader of the country.
52:25
And he steps up and he does it because he's acting it. He knows how to do it, and it's great.
52:31
And I just love the story. But I've seen that happen to people,
52:36
people who were the assistant to somebody running a company,
52:40
and suddenly they're thrust into the role.
52:43
And they never thought they could be a CEO, but they
52:46
can they they shift their mindset in their
52:49
whole reality and who they are changes and that's kind
52:52
of what the the performer's edge is about and that's kind of opening a different
52:56
of that being technically theater as well in a way like a stage sure yeah yeah
53:04
well one of one of the quotes is you know if if an artist can create an entire
53:08
reality in a book or in a play.
53:12
How hard is it to transfer that to
53:15
real life it happens over long periods
53:18
of time you know they're in star
53:21
trek in the 1960s there were communicators that
53:26
are now cell phones nobody had heard of a cell phone when that was written it
53:31
became a real thing a lot of things in literature become real pretty soon they're
53:36
going to beam us up i can't wait for that yes exactly now Now with AI and the
53:42
singularity and all of that.
53:45
Knows how fast it's going to change yeah we have
53:49
we have one last question from our live audience here coming
53:52
in from joel and he's asking what advice would
53:55
tobias have for like what minimalist things
53:58
can we do if for a one-person parlor show
54:01
or where someone doing a show in a living room for our friends what little things
54:06
could we do to make it more theatrical partly is videotape all your shows or
54:14
record them videotape is time dated but and watch them yourself you know david copperfield,
54:21
watches a video of his show after every show for his entire career he'll sit
54:26
down with chris kenner and watch the show and say oh god i don't want to do
54:30
it that way hey what if we made it what if i did it on the other side of the
54:34
stage and i could swing across you can you look at it and you will see things.
54:40
You will know immediately, oh my God, I can't believe I looked that way or I
54:46
said that to that audience person.
54:48
It just came out and I will never do that again.
54:51
So if you record yourself and watch yourself, that will make a huge difference almost immediately.
55:01
You'll be amazed. Things like verbal spackle, the uhs and the ums and the pauses
55:08
where you don't want them will go away.
55:11
You don't want to be that guy or that girl yeah but
55:16
you have to see it to understand that you're doing
55:18
it and uh i i think that's
55:21
the fastest fastest thing you can do to really improve short of working with
55:27
you know signing up for jeff mcbride classes yeah that oh man that's that in
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itself is gold and and worth the price of getting all the books therefore we
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should twice we could Honestly,
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I could just sit and listen to you talk for hours and hours,
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but we don't want to keep you up too late because in Portugal, it is very late now.
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So again, thank you for coming on. The link to Devise's book is in the description
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of wherever you're watching or listening to this.
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We will do another giveaway next week. We'll announce the winner.
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Go comment Wanda in Devise's post of ours on Instagram.
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And apart from thanking you, we're going to end our episode in the way that
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we always do, which is by giving our guest the final word.
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I think the final word is you can always do it better.
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I've worked with Jeff McBride for 35 years. When I see his show,
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I still give him notes and he still takes notes.
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And every show gets better.
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That's how you master magic.
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That's how you have a wonderful life in magic and keep it alive.
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You never get bored. You're always working harder and working to be better. That's my word.