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Beyond Deception -- Acting, Stagecraft and Innovation for Magicians

  • Beyond Deception -- Acting, Stagecraft and Innovation for Magicians
$195.00 ($100.00 minimum deposit)
Registration Not Open

Taught online on the Zoom platform. three Tuesdays, Nov. 17,  24 and Dec. 1 at 5 pm Pacific (8 pm Eastern). Each session 90 minutes plus Q & A. All sessions will be recorded and available to registrants for 2 months following the end of the class.

Special Guest Speakers Bob Fitch & Paul Draper

(Each will speak and answer questions for approximately 1 hour during one of our sessions)

Magic is so much more than tricks. To lift your performances above the level of "here's another trick," and into the realm of "a magical experience," you need all the tools of the actor -- character, believability, heightened emotion, and showmanship. Tobias Beckwith's book Beyond Deception, Vol. 1 has already inspired thousands of magicians to create more meaningful, more powerful experiences for their audiences. His experience as a director and acting teacher, combined with his deep knowledge of magic gained from 30 years working with Jeff McBride, Marco Tempest, and others, is now available via this class to you. Participants will receive a .pdf version of Beyond Deception as part of your class materials. Jeff McBride has long been among the most exciting of magical artists, with a strong background in mask, mime, and other performance disciplines. His book The Show Doctor continues to be a best seller. Beyond that, McBride is widely considered to be the best teacher of magic alive today.

We'll have 3 sessions, each 90 minutes of workshop plus discussion, starting November 17 at 5 pm Pacific (8 pm Eastern). During those sessions, we'll cover basic acting techniques for voice, movement, character, motivation, sub-text, and more.
 
 
You will come away with:
 
  • Voice & Body Warm-up Techniques
  • Working the Mask & Character Building
  • An Understanding of Basic Acting Psychology
  • Character through Dialect
  • "Theater Games" for Creativity and Enhancing your Performance Power
  • Written & Physical Creativity Exercises
  • How to work with motivation and sub-text
  • Script Development through Character Building
  • Enhancing Your Performance through Effective Staging
  • How Different Venues & Platforms (live & online) Affect Magic
  • A Director's Understanding of Show-Building
  • Better Practice & Rehearsal Techniques

Our Special Guests:

 

BOB FITCH has worn many hats in his lengthy professional career (actor, director, magician, singer, dancer). He counts twenty-seven Broadway Shows, including, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Whoopi Goldberg, and The Will Rogers Follies as Clem, Will's father. He received Broadway's Burns-Mantle Award for Best Featured Actor in a Musical for his villainous portrayal of Rooster Hannigan in the original Annie,  receiving a Carbonell Nomination for both direction and portrayal. He also staged the 1992 National Tour of Annie.

 

PAUL DRAPER is an anthropologist, academic, and award-winning mentalist, magician, and filmmaker. As an anthropologist and communications expert specializing in the cognitive science of religious beliefs, he has lectured at fortune 500 companies and universities. As the creator of the show Mental Mysteries, Draper blends his academic background as an anthropologist and communications expert with the arts of mentalism and magic. A decade into his magic career, he received the Merlin Award for his work as a corporate entertainer Draper has been described as a pioneer in the field of live online magic shows, regularly performing live streaming shows during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic with viewing audiences of thousands of people.

 

I'd like to be clear that this is not the kind of workshop class where you will present for feedback and direction, but a preliminary set of knowledge and work assignments that prepare you to get more out of that sort of work. The Magic & Mystery School currently offers Master Classes and one-on-one sessions with faculty where you can receive that kind of feedback and direction. Taking this class first will ensure that you get the most out of masterclasses and one-on-one instruction.

Presenters