My first full week of Summer shows is officially over. It was an exhausting 15 show schedule which was also incredibly fun. I'll share a couple highlights and low lights.
On Monday, I debuted my new version of the Magic Tea Kettle, an effect from the act of England's greatest magician, David Devant. My version actually was a far simplified version with a surprise ending. The concept is that any drink the magician wants can be poured from the tea kettle. In my version basically, several drinks are poured from the pitcher and tested out by audience members to prove they are the authentic drinks. In my case, these include iced tea, kool-aid, milk and other non alcoholic drinks. For the finale, I had planned to say something about the one drink that had me stumped, ORANGE JUICE. I explained how for some reason the orange would separate from the liquid in a most unusual manner. Then I would pour water from the tea kettle with orange slices, however, after a moment, the audience realized those orange slices were actually Goldfish! Pretty cool ending I thought. Most of the audience LOVED IT! But to my sudden surprise, two people who tested the drinks got a look on their face like they were about to throw up! I had to quickly let them know they did NOT DRINK Fish Water, lol! It was funny, and not funny, and then later still funny to me.
The Tea Kettle was pulled from the show after that until I could rescript the ending. By Thursday, it was back in the show temporarily, and this time out it delivered the punch I was looking for, without any fear of people wanting to vomit, lol. However, the Magic Tea Kettle is probably going to be pulled from the Summer show for another reason. It is too messy and difficult to set up and take down quickly. The Magic Tea Kettle will make a couple additional appearances this summer, but just not in every show.
Oh, also on Monday I got the 'summer welcome' by performing in a building which had ZERO air conditioning. It was actually cooler outside and it was 90 outside! Thankfully, that was the ONLY location like that this week.
This week was very successful, but I have to say I had an idea about twenty minutes ago about totally scrapping the current version of the summer show and starting all over. Not because there was anything bad about it, but I've got some other ideas and areas I'd like to explore. I don't think I'll actually scrap the show, but there are routines that are going to get replaced by some newer things. One in particular is a 'Magic JigSaw Puzzle. This is another one of my crazy ideas that has gone through numerous versions in my head, but I've not yet begun to build the props needed. I do have the puzzle, but I might even replace that one for something a little better.
This week was fun. I'll have more surprises for week 2!
