A Taste of Magic
Sunday, August 31 at 8 p.m.
Gossip Bar and Grill, 733 Ninth Avenue
A Taste of Magic includes dinner plus performances of close-up magic before the meal and between courses. For more information: atasteofmagicnyc.com

Chamber Magic, featuring Steve Cohen
There will be no performances of Chamber Magic over the weekends of August 22 & 23 and August 29 & 30. Chamber Magic returns September 5.
The Waldorf Towers, 100 East 50th Street.
For more information: www.chambermagic.com, or 866-811-4111.

Magic at Coney  
Sunday, August 31 at 1 p.m.; featuring Apollo Riego, Tanya Solomon, Torkova, Thomas SolomonSunday, September 7 at 1 p.m.; featuring Harry Mandel, Lee Alan Barrett, Omar Olusion, David Schwartz
At Peggy O'Neill's, 1904 Surf Avenue, Brooklyn. 
For information: www.peggyoneillsny.com or 718-449-3200.

Magic Mania, presented by Rich Marotta
Thursday, August 28th at 9 p.m., featuring Steve Dane, Steve Rodman, Rich Marotta
Thursday, September 4 at 9 p.m., featuring Will Fern, Ted St. James, Rich Marotta
The West End, 955 West End Avenue at 107th Street. 
For information: www.magicmania.net, box office: 800-838-3006

Monday Night Magic

Monday, September 1 at 8 p.m.; this week featuring David Schwartz, Michael DuBois, and Jeff Moche (headliner). Master of Ceremonies: Harrision Greenbaum. Intermission close-up performers: Ben Nemzer and Micahel Chaut. 
Monday, September 8 at 8 p.m.; this week featuring Ben Nemzer, Joshua Lozoff, and Chris Capehart (headliner). Master of Ceremonies: David Corsaro. 
Intermission close-up performers:Intermission close-up performers: Peter Samelson and Joe Maxwell.
Players Theatre, 125 MacDougal Street. For information: mondaynightmagic.com/MainMenu.html, 718-575-1349

Rich Bloch, Bob Fitch, and David Kovac will portray the three main parts in Neil Simon’s play The Sunshine Boys, September 4 through 7 in readings presented at The Dickens Parlour Theatre in Millville, Delaware. It is probably safe to say that this is the first time all three of these parts have been played by noted magicians. 

Dickens Parlour Theatre is a 50-seat venue that focuses primarily on magic. Asi Wind, Peter Samelson, Wil Fern, Chris Capeheart, and Harrison Greenbaum are a few of the magicians who regularly perform there. Although the theatre schedules magic almost exclusively during the beach town’s busy summer months, plays and music are also regularly presented, especially throughout the other months of the year. 

In The Sunshine Boys Al Lewis and Willie Clark, the elderly members of a once famous vaudeville duo, are reuniting for a TV special after more than a decade apart. The play navigates the strained relationship between the two partners who maintained a long career together despite personal conflicts. The work has the same kind of well-crafted humor that is characteristic of many Neil Simon plays, and it also provides a reflection on the substance and style of the vaudeville era. Yet it is primarily a character study focusing on the emotional entanglements of the two main characters. 

“Everybody thinks it’s a comedy and everybody laughs,” said Bob Fitch, who plays Willie Clark. “And it is funny because of the repartee, and the one-liners are fun, but they’re edged with anger on one side and guilt on the other, and for these two old guys, it’s a last hurrah. It was so real to me and so sad that I said ‘oh my God, I’ve got to do this.’”

“I think it draws its energy from the fact that these two guys are trapped in a room, metaphorically and actually” said Bloch, who is playing Al Lewis, “and I think that’s where the humor comes from. They don’t want to be there, they got to be there. They want to leave, they can’t leave. I think this is a really great comedic device that he came up with. The characters are just incredible.” [article continues]

Tannen's and Fantasma magic shops as well as the local assembly of the Society of American Magicians have announced a slate of lectures for late August and September.

Tannen's
Tannen's has announced three presentations, starting this Thursday, August 28, with an appearance by Alex Pandrea. Pandrea will focus mostly on classic and original card sleights and effects. Tannen's is also featuring Kostya Kimlet, whose lecture on September 9 will provide a window on his success as a corporate entertainer. Wayne Houchin will appear at Tannen's on September 30 with a new lecture, Strange Ideas, featuring an exploration of original magic and surprising variations - including magic with dollar bills, a helium balloon, cards, needles...and more. Each of the three Tannen's lectures is held at 7 p.m. and is priced at $20. For more information: http://www.tannens.com/shop/cart.php?m=product_list&c=264

Fantasma
Fantasma is presenting Chris Randall on September 13 at 7:30 p.m. Randall is a Las Vegas based magician who has appeared on the Masters of Illusion TV show and is a regular at The Magic Castle. He will be teaching his bill in lemon routine, Inception, as well as several other tricks from his act and "a lesson on magic and dating." Tickets for Randall's lecture are $25. For more information: 
http://www.fantasmamagic.com/proddetail.php?prod=crlect

PA1
Richard Turner is known as one of magic's most skillful sleight of hand artists and in particular is an expert on techniques relating to gambling. His lecture is free to members of the Parent Assembly of the Society of American Magicians. It is available to other S. A. M. members for $20 and to other magicians at $25. The lecture follows PA1's September 5 business meeting which starts at 7:15 p.m. at the Mt. Sinai East building, 1425 Madison Avenue at 98th Street. http://sampa1.com

Two of the magic acts that have appeared this season on America's Got Talent met up today at "Magic at Coney" where they each performed as part of the afternoon's bill. David Blatter and Leeman Parker, who perform as David and Leeman, joined magician Rogue, who appeared on AGT earlier in the season. Also appearing in the afternoon's show were producer and host Gary Dreifus and performers Carl Mercurio, Phil Crosson, and Dr. Sasko. 

David and Leeman have made it to the semifinals round of the nationally broadcast talent contest and will perform live on the NBC program this Tuesday. At "Magic at Coney" they performed a smash and stab type effect, and although they wouldn't comment when Dreifus asked from the stage what they would perform on the show Tuesday, it certainly never hurts to polish up a routine in front of an audience prior to presenting it on national television. 

Rogue performed several tricks during his set including the Russian Roulette-style effect with staple guns which he performed in his AGT appearance. Rogue selected Leeman as an audience volunteer for another effect where he joined two spectators together with a padlock which could only be opened by one key, which was randomly selected by another spectator from a container of many keys. 

Rogue is the stage name of Roger Quan a locally-based magician who also owns Rogue's Magic and Fun Shop in Queens and runs a magic bar where he presents shows on Friday and Saturday nights. David and Leeman, who are based on Los Angeles, have performed at the Magic Castle, presented two shows in the Hollywood Fringe Festival, and also recorded several effects for "Masters of Illusion" the magic series currently airing on the CW network.

"Magic at Coney" is presented each Sunday afternoon at Peggy O'Neill's, a bar and restaurant on Surf Avenue. For more information or to buy tickets: http://www.peggyoneills.com.

David and Leeman have not made their final appearance in the Magic in New York blog. We will have an exclusive interview with the duo soon!

David and Leeman the duo magic act that has gained national visibility this season on the NBC TV show America's Got Talent, will perform in a live performance this Sunday, August 24th at Magic at Coney, The weekly show is presented during the summer at Peggy O'Neill's, 1994 Surf Avenue in Coney Island. Also performing at the same show is local magician, Rogue, who was an AGT contestant earlier in the season.

David and Leeman impressed the AGT judges in their first appearance with a performance of The 100th Monkey, a trick in which it appeared that the team caused Howie Mandel to lose his ability to read. In their second appearance they performed a mentalism effect in which a word selected randomly by the judges appeared in a photo the duo had previously Tweeted.

David and Leeman are based in Los Angeles and have been working together for the last five years. They have appeared at the Magic Castle, presented two shows in the Hollywood Fringe Festival, and are scheduled to appear this season on the Masters of Illusion show broadcast on the CW network. The team announced Thursday via Facebook that their next appearance on AGT is scheduled for August 26th as part of the semi-final round. Considering that the shows are now broadcast live, it very well could be that at the Coney Island performance David and Leeman will be road-testing material for their TV appearance.

Other performers on the Magic at Coney bill this Sunday are Carl Mercurio, Rogue, Dr. Sasko, and Phil Crosson. Tickets are $12 for adults and $8 for children. For more information or to buy tickets: www.peggyoneillsny.com or 718-449-3200. Magic at Coney also has information on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/MagicAtConey.

Here at the Magic in New York blog we like to keep track of the local magicians and their activities. So, in that interest we can point you to this interview with David Blaine, given in connection with a series of three performances that started in Abu Dhabi on Thursday. The Abu Dhabi appearances kicked off a short international tour, which also includes performances September 5 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia; September 8 in Singapore; and September 12 in Manila, Philippines. A press release issued by World Concert Artists, a booking agency, suggests more dates are in the planning stages. A review of Blaine's first performance in Abu Dhabi can be found here.

Jeff Prace and John Stessel will give a joint lecture at Fantasma Magic this coming Thursday, August 21. In the following interview Jeff discusses the topics and structure of the upcoming lecture but also his background as a magic inventor, thoughts about magic, and future plans. For more information about the lecture at Fantasma, visit: http://www.fantasmamagic.com/proddetail.php?prod=JPJSL

Jeff Prace first came to attention in the magic world when his DVD Gum was produced by KozmoMagic and distributed through Murphy’s Magic Supplies in 2009. The trick was very well received both in its reviews and sales, even though Jeff was just fourteen years old at the time. “When Jeff Prace came out with Gum we knew right away that it was going to be a great seller,” said Patrick Wolford, Product Specialist at Murphy’s. "As a matter of fact; it still sells well to this day. Jeff is one of our industry’s most clever inventors.” Tim Trono, who worked at Murphy’s and was instrumental in arranging for Gum's distribution wrote on The Magic Cafe that “Jeff is a great kid. He's creative, respectful, etc. Don't be fooled by his age or his quiet demeanor. Jeff is a creative force to be reckoned with.”

Since that initial release Prace has developed and released tricks with cel phones, earbud-type headphones, keys and other common objects. Along the way he performed on the Today show after winning a contest to appear with David Copperfield. He’s about to enter his junior year of college at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana.

I thought I’d start off with the basics, the ‘where are you from and how did you get started in magic’ questions.
I’m from Chicago. I live in the suburbs. Or now I live a little down south, going to school at the University of Illinois. I got started in magic when I was around seven at Navy Pier, which was a popular tourist location in Chicago. They had a little magic shop and my parents bought me a magic set for a birthday present and from there it spiraled to getting a magic tutor to going to magic lectures and magic classes and stuff like that. 

You were seven when you got you the magic set?
Yes. The stuff in it was the hot rod, and the cups and balls and stuff and actually I work at a magic store now - or I did over the summer - and it was awesome because when a kid would come in I would always try to pitch the hot rod, just because it had such a meaning to me.

Which store were you working in?
For the last two summers I’ve worked at Midwest Magic, which is a magic shop in Chicago. We’re one of the largest in the United States, with over 12,000 unique items.

Ok, so you were seven, you’re parents took you to the Navy Pier, you saw a magician and you said then you had a magic tutor?
Yeah, a mentor, kind of. I walked into a different magic store, not Midwest Magic, that was near me, and we asked if there was anyone in the area who gave lessons and they recommended a magician named Mike Hall, and Mike taught me for years and years, everything that I know about magic, and he’s still one of my great friends today.

What kind of stuff did you work on?
Mike was a great teacher and started teaching me right away the classic kinds of things, the classic card tricks and the classic coin stuff. So, when I was younger, that’s really what I focused on. I was a card magician, and I was a coin magician and I really liked that kind of stuff. One of the earlier things I remember was McDonald’s Aces and that was a lesson in using the Elmsley Count, for example. 

So you must have gotten pretty heavily into it.
Yeah, for years and years that’s all I did. 

Magic?
Yeah, magic, and card magic in particular.

I know that you started inventing magic at a relatively young age. Can you recall the evolution of that and how you started thinking about creating magic?
The first trick I ever created was a very simple trick with a Sharpie. The clip of the Sharpie would break off and then it would visibly restore. Then shortly after that I made up the gum trick which is where an empty pack of Orbit fills itself, and those were the first two. I saw David Regal lecture and I showed him the Sharpie trick, and as it turned out he was guest writing the column for Genii magazine, David Acker’s normal column — or it used to be David Acker’s column — and he asked to use the Sharpie trick. I was fourteen, and I obviously said yes as it was the first trick I’d ever published. 

And then Gum was the second?
That was shortly after. What happened with that was I showed Kozmo the trick and I asked him if he wanted to use it for Reel Magic magazine, which is his video magazine, so I sent him the video clip, and he asked me how it worked. He had no idea. He was just amazed. So then he sent it to Tim Trono who at the time worked for Murphy’s as a buyer and Tim was also fooled. So, I sent him a few more gum tricks that I had been working on and at that point the Gum project came into effect with the four tricks.

[Interview Continues]

Meir Yedid and Marc Salem were the featured performers in Rich Marotta's new weekly magic show, Magic Mania, which launched last night at the West End Lounge. Here are a handful of photos from the show.

Meir Yedid, Marc Salem, Mike Kirschner, Magick Balay, Will Fern, and J. P. Laramee are among the area magicians scheduled to perform in Magic Mania, a new weekly magic show in Manhattan that starts Thursday, August 7. Veteran performer Rich Marotta is the impresario behind the show, which will be held at The West End, a bar and nightclub at 107th Street and West End Avenue. "I wanted a room for people to work out," Marotta explained. "There are a lot of great magicians in the City who don't work Monday Night Magic, and they don't have a place to work out, and there are some new guys I've met who I would like to help bring along." Marotta will serve as master of ceremonies and host of the weekly 90-minute show which will usually feature performances by two magicians in addition to Marotta.

The show's premiere will include performances by award-winning conjuror Meir Yedid, and Marc Salem, an accomplished mentalist who has been profiled on 60 Minutes and appeared on Broadway. David Levitan, Ryan Oakes, Steve Rodman, and John Born are among the other established local magicians who Marotta says will appear in the series. Magic Mania will also serve as the professional launching pad for emerging magician Dave Murillo on August 14. "I see it as a great opportunity," Murillo said. "Everyone's always talking about 'you got to get your chops.' But how do you get that? That's one of the obstacles when you're beginning performing professionally. What Rich is doing gives you a spot to try material out and get over the hurdle of getting in front of people."

Aside from the stage performances, Marotta is inviting close-up magicians to perform at the club's bar. "I'd like it to be a place where magicians hang out," he says." "If you look at history," says Murillo, "a lot of these big time names they all came from New York. There's not enough magic here in New York now in my opinion. A lot of it is in Vegas or The Magic Castle in California. I think we should have something like that here."

Rich Marotta started his magic career in San Francisco where he moved in the late 1970s in order to perform at the nightclub Earthquake McGoons. Over the last 35 years he has straddled the worlds of magic and stand-up comedy. Marotta moved from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 1980 where he worked such clubs as The Comedy Store and The Improv and also appeared at The Magic Castle. He relocated to New York in 1984 where he performed frequently at Dangerfields as well as other local comedy venues. Marotta has also toured the national comedy club circuit and appeared several times on national television. He has marketed such original effects as Rat Trap and the Fishbowl Production, which are used by magicians around the world, and his work is documented in two DVD releases available in magic retail shops.

Tickets for Magic Mania are $15 and there is a two menu-item minimum. More information is at magicmania.net. The West End lounge is located at 955 West End Avenue at West 107th Street.