The nature of the variety arts is such that there have always been, and shall always be, unsung heroes. I can tick off a list of performers who had significant impact on me in the course of my life in magic, whose names would mostly be recognized by locals who shared the same geography.
The New England Magic Collectors Association’s Board of Governors is proud to announce the 2017 Founders Award has been presented to the American Museum of Magic of Marshall, Michigan.
MagiCuba will include five days of magical performances in numerous venues around the capital city, including full evening shows at the National Theater, cabaret performances in Havana nightclubs, a special performance at the Cuban Circus and all-day magic at Palacio de la Artesanía. The Festival will also showcase the top International and Cuban magicians.
He builds illusions his own particular way, generally with full-scale constructions rather than computer simulations or miniature models. He emphasizes that real-world performance is vastly different than theory on paper or screen, and thus his old world skill set delivers the most modern of solutions for every conceivable variety of need and application. I literally cannot imagine the skills it requires to restore or recreate the automata that fuel Gaughan’s passion, but I am truly wondrous every time I see one of his performances with them.
On the first weekend of January, my partner, Ann Coleman, and I took my twin stepsons, Dexter and Grayson, now 14 years old, to Los Angeles for a three-day adventure, in the concluding days of their winter break before returning to ninth grade. This was the “J-Pa Knows A Guy” road trip (a sort of running family joke about me), that included magic, music, meals and more.
Spending time with Luis, I quickly became aware of his intelligence, passion, knowledge of magic, and what I can only describe as a deeply artistic spirit. He is very much a product of the influence of Tamariz and the Spanish School, but also, like Juan, he has tremendous experience as both a stage and television performer.
Nominations are now being accepted for work completed in 2017 for the Allan Slaight Awards. Each year the ASA awards a total of $50,000 recognizing outstanding achievements in the pursuit of the impossible across five different categories:
Sharing Wonder ($15,000) recognizes exceptional magic performed for the public, whether in live performance, on television or online. Past recipients include Derek Delgaudio (2017), Darcy Oake (2016) and Penn & Teller (2015)
The seventeenth gathering of the New England Magic Collectors Association is coming up this fall in Westborough, Massachusetts.
One last devilish addition to the Screening Room for 2017...
While Vernon’s focus was on sleight-of-hand magic with playing cards and other small objects, his vision was such that it would eventually impact the entirety of performance magic, from its largest stage illusions down the smallest feat performed with a single coin.
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