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I'm part of a duo of magicians that do both small stage and close-up, which I think is what you're getting at (website in my sig for a better idea of what we do), so maybe I can be of some help.

When it comes to putting together a show, you need to consider it as more than a collection of tricks loosely strung together. For a start, it is really, really hard to hold an audience's attention for more than an hour. Hell, even an hour is pretty tough. If you've got three hours of good material, go through it and mercilessly cut out everything that isn't great. If you've still got more than an hour you're either a genius, or you're not being hard enough on yourself.

Maybe an example is the best thing here?

Next week we're previewing our new stage show "Morgan and West: Time Travelling Magicians", which we will be taking to the Edinburgh fringe in August. When writing the show, the first thing we came up with was the general idea - that we were magicians from the past. Then everything we put in sprung from that, rather than picking a bunch of tricks and thinking "How shall we fit these together?".

We came up with the concept for the show last August, and spent the best part of two months writing (and rewriting, and rewriting) the effects. A whole lot of ideas we came up with never made it as far as the rehearsal stages, as we decided they didn't fit/weren't as good as others/were too similar to others in the show. We then did a scratch show in December to test out the material - some of it worked well, some of it bombed horribly. So, back to the drawing board, more rewriting, some new tricks entirely, some that got pretty much cut.

The months since then have been spent rewriting, rehearsing, testing on friends, and generally getting it all to the stage where we're happy to try it on an audience "for real". Currently we rehearse 12-15 hours a week, filming ourselves performing and watching it back, then changing things and trying it again. Next week we'll find out whether it was worth it.

So that's how much work goes into creating one of our shows. I'm by no means telling you this to put you off, I'm just demonstrating how much work an hour long show (especially with two people) can be. If you want, feel free to PM me with any questions you have about putting a show together as part of a duo. Until then, I suggest writing a really bloody good 15 minute set and rehearsing the pants off it. Then go from there.

Some really interesting stuff from serendipity.
Personally, I have only ever done 'one man' pieces without assistants and so on, but I can easily see how that could potentially double the time it takes to prepare a performance.
I don't do stage, but I suppose the conditions I find myself in are parlour or close up but that still requires the same amount of consideration to the performance. I go through a process of deciding what I would like to see, I reenter a sort of state of mind in which I am a layman- I think like a layman and percieve things like a layman and then I decide what I would entertain me, what would baffle me, inspire me, change me, linger on my mind etc. Often I take inspiration from a specific theme that happens to be going around in my head, for example it could be about free will, skepticism, probability or even time travel.. Then I have a sort of effect in mind, which I then plan out, how it would look and how it would be percieved. By now all I have is an effect, I haven't even though about methodology. I then go about brainstorming all the different possible methods and then construct one, sometimes improvising but often using techniques and methods which already exist. I then refine it, practice it in private and script it fully until I am happy with it. Then I go and 'trial' it on a family member or close friend. I know my family are cynical and critical in this sence because I ask them to be (and they are 'immune' to some extent). I take their critism, I analyse what I thought went well, what went wrong maybe sometimes entirley scrap it, maybe change the entire method because it isn't practicle, then I add any other subtlties I haven't already thought of and I practically have every second of what I am going to be doing planned. Then I practice and then I go and perform it as a product which is constantly evolving and improving. That process can take sometimes a week, easily a month or maybe several.
Even if I am performing someone elses material, I still feel obliged to put it through a very similar process of audience testing, scripting, evolving and moulding it to fit me, adding subtleties maybe sometimes changing method or effect drastically or only slightly.
I have never had the opportunity to perform for 2 hours. I have performed for entire evenings, but never for the same audience have I performed for 2 hours, but putting something together for that time would be a long, long process. That's why I would trust Serendipity if I was you. Quality not Quantity.
I have been planning a Q and A routine for about 3 months. I could go on doing it for years and I doubt it will actually last for more than 25-20 minutes. The routine that is.

Great stuff from both Serendipity and Sam there.

Not to hijack this thread completely, but I'm interested in the way you test out your acts after you've worked them out. You both mention trialling in front of family and friends to get preliminary opinions. What if (as in my case) there are no family or friends to impose upon?

I perform for people who I know are going to be critical, but in a positive way. I don't want anyone who's going to shoot it down completley nor do I want someone too polite who won't give me anything constructive. I suppose, just find someone who's ok with you practicing on them. As someone learning things such as hellstromism and hypnosis I have several 'guinee pigs' who are used to me experimenting stuff with them. But the first time I perform it in a performance setting is never the finished product, as I said, it's always evolving and 'performing' it in a normal setting instead of as 'experiments' is all part of the process.
Sometimes, I must confess, I skip my laborious process, if I'm using someone elses material and it is relativley risk free in terms of the actual performance I will practice it in pricate until it is up to a performance standard and then go out and perform it, which allows me to tailor it much more easily. It is often when things go wrong or when something happens that could only happen in a performance setting that you learn and evolve the trick to newer hights. Don't think of it as a mechanical process, but as a process of evolution, where performance, technique and methodology is constantly being tweaked and improved. I have been performing one trick scince pretty much the moment I started in magic. Any hobbyist should know the basic method, but I have refined it to the extent it's deception is something I am quite proud of!
All this work and practice can be at times vexing as you can't expect any gratification and as a mind reader/ magician, it needs to all look 'impromptu' and down to your magical or psycholigal/ psychic skills, but that is where it all pays off.
Sorry for going off on (another) ramble.

Well, for a start, being a duo means that we constantly have a second pair of eyes on the effect, questioning whether it works/is funny/sucks like a hoover. On top of that, we film everything we do on my webcam, so we can watch it back from an audiences point of view. The third step is then showing it to a few close friends who are heavily involved in theatre, who tell us what they think/what they spotted/if we're being too self indulgent. Before we start an effect we often run the idea of the trick past this same group of friends to see if they like the sound of it, as sometimes a trick that we love doesn't do a lot for a lay audience.

If you don't have a group of friends/family you can show material to, I still heartily recommend filming it and watching it back yourself - I'm sure you could put it up in the file sharing section here if you want a bit of constructive criticism.

The final step with new material is just plain testing it out - we do scratch shows early on when we're working on a new project, where we make it quite clear we're testing out new material. We just do them upstairs in a pub near us, charge a couple of quid a ticket and ask for opinions at the end. Also, if you've got a reasonably friendly gig lined up - charity work, or maybe a regular cabaret spot, we tend to test out material there, to try and iron out the kinks (although only once we've rehearsed it up quite a lot).

Oh, and lastly, a painful truth. Sometimes, no matter how much you love a trick, no matter how much time you've spent on it, or how original the idea is, it just won't work, and you have to pull it apart and put it back together, or just plain let it die. This happens to everyone, don't feel bad about it.

Hope that helps.

That's another excellent point, that it is terribly easy to become too self indulgent and create a wonderfully complicated and spectacular routine, but the the audience doesn't like it as much as you do. You are not there to entertain yourself but others.
Can I just say though Serendipity, I think your webstite is excellently crafted and there seems to be a lot of effort gone into it. I reckon plenty of magicians could learn a lot about publicity from it.

That's nothing. Wait til you see the new website we're having built...

Serendipity wrote:If you don't have a group of friends/family you can show material to, I still heartily recommend filming it and watching it back yourself - I'm sure you could put it up in the file sharing section here if you want a bit of constructive criticism.

That's the problem with mentalism. Once you're past learning any mechanics, you've got to have at least one other person around to practise on. I don't.

I suppose it just means I'll have to skip the luxury of that step and stand or fall with real live spectators.

real live spectators are are best to learn on, it's not until you get out that you really find out what works and what doesn't.

Lady of Mystery wrote:real live spectators are are best to learn on, it's not until you get out that you really find out what works and what doesn't.

...And also the little pitfalls you might fall into under pressure! I was trying out my new Flash Cards (stacked deck of picture cards) on somebody the other day and -- while I pulled it off successfully -- squared up the deck and therefore couldn't have them replace the card in the right spot to keep the stack intact. Not a big deal, no harm done, but a little reminder not to handle the cards that way again!

Having learned that lesson, I took the Flash Cards to a lunch on Monday and suitably impressed a few people. Well chuffed!

Regarding the less mechanical practices more specific to mentalism, it isn't really practicle to be practivcing with either a video cassette or the same certain few 'guinee pigs'. For example cold reading is something which needs to be practices in the real world with different people, but in less 'performance' contexts and obviously friends and family cannot be used. So obviously finding the right enviroment is important, but the way I to do it is to have 'outs'. For example, whilst learning hellstromism, I first of all try it for real, but when you first start you can sometimes get entireley lost. Instead of admitting defeat, I have an out- as Corinda I believe reccomended (or was it kreskin who does this?) you could have an assistant signalling you the information if you fail, but as that is not always practicle, I use billet work as my 'out'. I use my outs increasingly less, but should I not suceed, I have the neccacary information written on a billet and then peek it. Same for learning pencil reading/ sound reading, if I can p. read or sound read it I do, if I don't its set up for a relevant peek. Same with certain psychological forcing- If I am trying to suggest a card, I have an index in my pocket (or a swami could be used) for back up if I can't name the card. Cold reading is a little slippier. I don't practice the classic 'readings' but am more interested in the more entertaining, impressive and riskier uses of cold reading. These naturally mean I have to commit myself a little more to my statements than vauge barnum statements but it is just a matter of framing it in a way that if it does fall flat on it's face then it is not a problem. By not framing something as a test or telling the audience exactley what is going on it doesn't matter if it fails, or if I need to commit myself a little more I need some out- be it with humour or just admiting failure and not dwelling on it. For example in wonder words there is a trick called: not if when, which involves a psychological card force and if it does go wrong it is transformed into a joke and nobody cares. Another mentalist was just throwing in a quick cold reading to another trick (which I think works well because if it doesn't go to plan it's not important) and he did the old 'you have a scar on your knee' and it failed- and so he replies 'God, didn't you have a childhood?!' and nobody cares that he fails. So the message is, use outs and if you do fail, which when you are learning the less mechanical and tangible skills, not to let it get to you or your audience. Failure is much more powerful than sucess.

No no no, pace your performance on how best to perform the trick. Don't string the tricks out longer to fill the time. That will switch the audience off completely. If you need more material then get more material to fill the space. Don't alter the pace of the performance, it breaks a golden rule of theatre. Pacing is important.

No no no, pace your performance on how best to perform the trick. Don't string the tricks out longer to fill the time. That will switch the audience off completely. If you need more material then get more material to fill the space. Don't alter the pace of the performance, it breaks a golden rule of theatre. Pacing is important.

No disrespect, but I don't believe anybody was suggesting to drag out any tricks for the sake of it. And naturally timing follows performance style- some can keep a trick going for ten minutes and not loose and audience, others do it better in 2-3 minutes.

I agree with Lady of Mystery - in fact I'll just voice what Andrew and Keith repeatedly said on their Go Magic Go podcast - hold preview (free) shows for audiences and get constructive feedback from them - enforce that they will not be hurting you by informing you of the shortcomings in the show, but will only be helping you..

I find that at least with mentalism, practicing on friends and family isn't very useful. It teaches you the most common landfalls and lets you work on the instructions to the audience, but it doesn't really give you a feel of how a real audience would respond to the effect. The reason is simple: they know you. Some effects in mentalism are so strong that there is always a lingering doubt: "Did he really read my mind?" "He says it's not paranormal, but what else could it be?!"
When doing effects for your mother, father and siblings, they just know you too well to be stunned, or to be pulled fully into the show. In other words, they know the real you, and understand that your stage persona is an illusion.

I would take Sam Gurney's advice about always having an out when trying new stuff. Also, I like training during train rides. I find a seat, do some card riffling from hand to hand, and after a few minutes ask the lady in front of me if I can try something on her, which I recently learned. It's even better if the other person asks if I'm a magician, to which I answer "No, but I'm learning some interesting stuff on human psychology, etc. Can I try something on you?" then I show him/her. Then I dazzle him/her with some simple and well-tried mentalism effect or two, possibly followed by a new trick with an out.

I hope this helped.