My First Audition!

I work in one of several IT departments of a major bank in South Africa. One of my colleagues is on the committee that is organising our “End of Year Function”. The organisers have decided to include a talent show segment. Although I have performed 2 informal shows for different groups of friends, I have never performed professionally or formally, so this will be a first for me. There should be in the region of 150 people attending. I had to do an audition for the organisers. They wanted to make sure that I will not look like a fool in front of all those people. There were only a few committee members so I decided to do a short Close-Up show.

I decided to perform RED HOT MAMA (from Easy to Master Card Miracles Volume 1 by Michael Ammar), THAT’S IT (also from Easy to Master Card Miracles Volume 1 by Michael Ammar) and end off with a SPONGE BALL routine (Spongeball Toolbox and DVD by Steve Dacri is a very good source). I practised the tricks a few times in front of a mirror, performed them to my wife, wrote a script and rehearsed the lines to myself (mostly in my head).

The audition day finally arrived!

My heart was racing and I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins. I embraced this feeling and took the front as I opened with RED HOT MAMA.

As luck would have it, I messed up with the first phase of the trick. They already saw the red backed card, so I did something with out even thinking about it. I showed the red backed card as an incorrect card. “I think I messed this one up” I said. The lady on the committee who works with me probably felt sorry for me and said the first spectator did not touch the deck hard enough (I had the spectator do a “magic touch” in order to “reveal” the card, i.e. turn the back red). I was still set up for the second phase, so I left the “incorrect” card on the table. I shuffled until they called stop (well I stopped) and showed them the chosen card. I turned to my colleague and had her touch it. “I’ll touch it harder” she said (This really rescued me, because it made it seems as though I intended for It to happen that way). One of the other spectators said something along the lines of “Oh! So you just pretended to mess up”. I was not going to tell them otherwise.

I moved on to perform THAT’S IT (also a “magician in trouble” trick that added nicely to my “mess-up”) and a SPONGE BALL ROUTINE flawlessly. The spectators really enjoyed themselves.
I ended with the SPONGE BALL ROUTINE and left the room. My colleague told me at first after witnessing my “mess-up”, they were not so sure, but after I did the last 2 tricks they very impressed. I’m assuming the second phase of the first trick also impressed them, because the one guy was saying “But that red card was the 3 of Hearts and now it’s the Queen of Spades”.

After I left the room they were still talking about me and trying to figure out how I did it. I asked my colleague if they could see how I did any of the tricks and she said that they couldn’t.

So it is all systems go for “My First Show”!