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How To Present A Program
By Harlan Tarbell
Make a list of the tricks which appeal to you most and which you seem best able to perform. Remember
your dramatic effect in arranging these tricks, working up to a climax. It is best to keep your tricks in divisions,
such as paper tricks in one, string tricks in another, etc. However, arrange the sequence of effects so that one
blends into the other.
Paraphernalia:
I suggest that you secure a suitcase, about 10 x 15 inches. Put small wooden partitions in it to separate the paraphernalia for each trick. You can then arrange your materials nicely so that they are easily "getable."
When you are working on a stage with curtains and have an opportunity to prepare for your performance,
you can arrange things easily, but for club or parlor work, you will find the use of the suitcase almost a
necessity.
When you come to your show, you have in your pockets, of course, those things which require working
from the pocket, such as the Thumb Tip, etc. You can come in with your suitcase, place it on a table, open the
top up toward audience and prop it up with a stick or have a special catch made and you are ready to begin. The
top of the suitcase acts as a screen for your movements in removing paraphernalia. You have everything in
order so that there is no fumbling about, looking for apparatus. Then when you are through with your
performance, replace the paraphernalia which is still out, close up your suitcase, and walk away.
Arranging Your Audience:
Always try to arrange your audience in front of you. There should be an angle of 45 degrees at least from
you to your spectators on extreme sides, and they should be far enough in front so that they cannot see moves
which you do not want them to see.
It is not always possible, however, to arrange your audience in the ideal way. For emergency you should
carry tricks with you which can be performed under difficulties.
Club work often presents great difficulties because people are all around you. You must have fool-proof
tricks ready to perform at a moment's notice. Work at club luncheons is especially difficult because of the
angles of visibility. Try to get a corner in which to work so that you are out of the angles of visibility of the
audience.
If people insist on sitting at the sides, I tell them that they can see my work much better from the front as
my body covers so much of the effects from their view when they are at the sides.
Sometimes you can secure a parlor screen or two to close off a small stage. This will help you
considerably.
Look to your lighting before you begin. The ideal lighting is from the front -- that coming from the rear is
apt to expose the effects. So size up the situation from the standpoint of placing of audience and lighting and
place yourself so that you may perform to the best advantage.
Do all you can to guard your secrets from detection -- for your own success in the work as well as for the
good of the profession as a whole.
Learn when to quit.
Most beginners are too slow in their presentation and make their programs too long.
Rather than tire your audience, leave them wanting more.
Never repeat a trick.
I warned you of the danger of repeating tricks in the first lesson. Turn a
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deaf ear to all requests and coaxing to repeat a trick. When people are mystified they invariably ask you to "do it again."
And then if you repeat the trick, they look for things which you don't want them to look for, and you run great
danger of being discovered.
If you must repeat at all, vary the trick or present some other effect. This will usually satisfy the audience.
If you chance to come across nuisances who are disagreeably insistent, do not take them seriously, just ignore
them.
Never expose a trick.
You realize that your success in Magic depends on secrecy. Think of the many
centuries that this Art has survived, and you, now that you are joining the ranks of the Mystics, have a
responsibility and an obligation to fulfill — and that is to guard your tricks sacredly against being exposed.
It is up to you to see that no pebble, regardless of how small, is allowed to crumble out of the foundation
of Magic. It is up to you to protect the principles and the effects you learn against the layman and to keep them
as your very own.
How to Get Volunteers to the Stage.
Sometimes it is difficult to get volunteers from the audience to come up on the stage. You can in some cases overcome this by speaking directly to certain people instead of to the audience in general. Then if the spectator is embarrassed by stage fright, help him along in this manner. Ask him to hold a certain article for you, then to hold it up higher. Then you might say:
"Please stand up, sir, so that the man over there can see. Yes. Perhaps, if you come out into the aisle, it
would be better. Fine. Just come up on the stage and all can see it."
Thus you get him to the stage step by step, and as you do this gradually, he cannot refuse.
Remember always to be courteous and respectful to people who come up to the stage to assist you. Make
them feel perfectly at home. NEVER PLAY A JOKE on a spectator or do anything to make him lose
confidence in you. Comedy at the expense of one in your audience is not good comedy for the Magician. Be
tactful and people will be glad to help you on the platform.
How to Deal with the Wiseacres.
No matter what happens, you must keep your poise. Always be a
gentleman, and be the master of every situation. There is occasionally someone in an audience who tries to
discourage the performer and put him in embarrassing positions — the "smart" person who will not give the
performer a chance. If the magician suggests one thing, he suggests another. He also is the type who tells
everyone around him how the trick is done. He is seldom, if ever right but he is very annoying, nevertheless.
He acts in this manner because he wants to be in the limelight and he is doing his best to get there. You must
never permit yourself to fear this person.
The audience is always with the performer. They do not like to have disturbing elements arise to interfere
with the show and they will admire you if you keep cool and smile away difficulties. Make your presentation so
good that even the wiseacre will admit your worth. The tricks in this course are designed to help you puzzle the
"wise" ones.
Remember that you are the MASTER during your performance. Your audience will think so and you must
keep them thinking so.
Harlan Tarbell was the mentor of many gnerations of magicians through his famous correspondance course
The Original Tarbell Course In Magic
