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"I have a problem which crops up every once in a while when I'm doing a show for a young child's birthday party. After I finish each trick in my program, I am met with dead silence. It's not that the children do not want to applaud, but rather that they are too young to know that it is customary to do so. These breaks of silence are bad for my show as the kids tend to get restless during the time which it takes me to put one trick away and bring out another. Please understand that it is not because I need ego-building that I want applause. It's just that these silent periods deteriorate my show."
My correspondent is fifteen years old and has been doing children's shows, he tells me, for about three years now. He sends me an assortment of his publicity material (all very good), including the popular Rabbit Folder by Sid Lorraine.
I have written my young friend with a lot of fatherly advice which I hope proved to be helpful. Meanwhile his enquiry raises points that may be of interest to young performers generally, hence this elaboration of my personal reply to Eric Rasmussen, who lives at 306 Linden St., Glen Ellyn, 111. 60137.
First thing that occurs to me is, - do the tricks shown actually merit applause? Are they the kind of tricks that have a "So What!" effect, tricks that leave the audience puzzled, maybe, but not entertained? For example, a candle may be shown, covered with a cloth, and it disappears. So what? It could be a banana or a magic wand. The evanishment is a puzzle to the audience, and that is all. But if there's a reason. . .or a story. . .a surprise, fun and laughter, involved with the van-inshing effect, then it becomes entertainment. Successful entertainment automatically invites applause, (or at
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least response of some kind) from even the youngest audience. A puzzle merely leaves them wondering, silently.
Eric says, "The kids get restless during the time it takes me to put away one trick and bring out another." How LONG is that time? Certainly, it shouldn't be so long that the audience has an opportunity to become restless! It should not take long to discard a piece of apparatus and go on with the next trick. . . two or three seconds at the most. No one can get restless in that short space of time! If tricks are laid out in sequence, ready to perform, you can go from one to another without stopping. A non-stop performance keeps children interested, prevents their minds (and bodies!) from wandering, and their attention is held from start to finish. If they interrupt the show to applaud, all well and good. If not, just go forging ahead, keeping up the action and the patter, the fun and amazement and laughter.
If the magician has his whole act stashed away on shelves at the back of a roll-on table, he has to learn to pick up his props smoothly, without delay. An audience is not entertained while the performer frantically searches in semi-gloom at the back of his table for his props. They are not interested in seeing his back end sticking out from behind the table while he re-arranges the stuff inside to make room for discarded apparatus. If this type of table is used, - and it IS used, very often by highly professional, successful magicians, - it must be used intelligently, gracefully and efficiently, to be effective.
If you cannot keep smiling and talking to your audience while you bring out apparatus from the inside back of your table, without having to search for it, then use some other kind of table. After
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