Anthony Darkstone – In Conversation With Jeff McBride

Introduction Those of you familiar with my series, both written & live, will know that I usually have an established way of introducing my Guests. Of necessity, this time I will deviate from my norm. As you peruse, my reasons will become self-evident. It was an unusually cold night in Las Vegas. Christian Diamond, Jason Andrews and I were at Amazing Jonathan’s Halloween Party a few years...

El Taumaturgo Interview with Jeff McBride

I am starting with a rather cryptic question, please forgive me for that. But I’ve always felt that there is a lot of “magic” in your magic. What’s the way, in your opinion, to surpass a mere exhibition and go into an emotional experience?  Tricks engage the mind as puzzles.  In order to impact your audience on deeper levels, more thought has to be put into the various elements that...

Jeff McBride Interviews Kevin James

Jeff: Is it true you are related to a rather famous American showman? Kevin: Before I was ever interested in magic, my grandmother on my father’s side would tell us that we were related to P.T. Barnum. I kind of forgot about it for years, I didn’t really know who that was. Just before she passed, I asked her, how are we related to him? She explained it to me. It seems that our family is related...

Scriptwriting for Magicians

One of the questions that I get asked the most at our classes is “Is it better to script or just to talk naturally?” When I hear this question, I usually regard this as someone who is asking me to give them permission to be lazy. An argument I hear frequently, is “Well, I don’t want to sound like I’m reciting words from a script.” The answer to this argument is that we are actors playing the...

First Impressions

You never know who you are really talking to. They could be a terrorist, or a great leader. Let me explain…. It started in Israel. A bomb had blown up in a tourist section of Jerusalem. Dozens of people were dead or injured and all of our major convention shows were cancelled. A young magician, born in Italy, now living in Budapest, named David, was in a challenging situation with the management...