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Category: Magic Blog

To Script or Not to Script… That is the question

Keith Fields

Colon 2010 Wed. 309As I write this I am sitting at a coffee shop on the Golden Princess, a cruise ship with over 3000 passengers – I’ve come a long way since the above photo.  We are on our way from LA to Hilo in Hawaii which means 4 long days at sea, sounds like a dream job right?  Well it is a great job but the long sea days can really get to you, there are only so many films you can watch and books you can read, it takes a certain mind set to avoid going stir crazy.  I have probably drunk enough coffee this week to float this vessel!  I will be making this trip 6 times over the next 3 months and I am using the time to work on some new material, finish  ‘If Ever A Wiz There Was Part 2’, and spend time in conversation with the other acts that are onboard – a comedian, a hypnotist, and a vocal impressionist. Mixing with performers with different skills is very educational.

Last night after my shows (I had to do a 45 minute show twice in a 900 seat venue) I had a late night drink with the comedian and as often happens we started talking about comedy and approaches to performing.  The topic that we discussed at great length was the pros and cons of scripted performance vs improvising.

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Burger Kings by Keith Fields

Keith Fields 0 Comments

If you don’t have goals you will lack direction and your future will be driven by luck’   

This is a quote by a nearly famous magician. Any idea who?  

I have had many magical goals and ambitions in my life and have been lucky enough to fulfill many of them.

Amongst some of my favorites are performing a one man show at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival (actually I did two shows, an afternoon show for families and an evening show for the bigger kids).  Then there was  performing in a Las Vegas magic show (thanks to Paul Stone and his fantastic show at the Vegas Magic Theater ).  If you are visiting Vegas make sure you check this one out.  It is an intimate show with different performers every week and I know you will have a great time.

And as all the best things come in threes I am chuffed to bits that I have had one of my tricks published in the Magicana section of Genii magazine.  This was always a secret ambition that I never really dreamed would happen as those pages are usually reserved for high brow card and coin work.

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Performing isn’t easy but……

Keith Fields

I had many comments and emails about my last essay entitled ‘Guts’. One of them that got me thinking was from Jack C. Caranci.

 ‘…performing, for me, is akin to flying a plane (long periods of calm interspersed by moments of sheer terror) for me that is where the guts come in – those terror moments when I try something new or better, try an old trick on a new audience.’

Jack refers to himself as an ‘occasional’ magician, and though I am a professional who has performed all over the world, I can deeply relate to his comment.

I clearly remember trying to show fellow magicians a simple trick when I was new to magic. I remember looking down at a pair of hands that were no longer mine. They insisted on shaking and the more I tried to stop them the more unstoppable the tremors became. I knew the trick inside out, I had practiced all the moves untill I could do them perfectly. In front of a mirror I was a magical god; in front of an audience I was a bag of nerves… and the real rub of it was that I was doing a self working trick!

I could do moves and sleights with the best of them (when I say the best of them I mean the guys at the local magic club) but I could not do a whole trick or a routine without an internal earthquake – I had a bad case of stage fright.

Back then I did not know what to do and I was too embarrassed to ask people for help. This has led me to the following question ‘knowing what I know now, what advice would I have given me?’

BW ANow let’s jump forward about 30 years.

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GUTS by Keith Fields

Keith Fields

I once heard the following introduction…

 ‘To be a great entertainer you need three things.

The first is class – there needs to be something about you that sets you apart, and this act has got class.

The second is guts – Show business is a tough business, and this act has got guts.

The third and perhaps the most important thing you need is a truly great act, and this act has got guts!

 Oh how we laughed! There is often truth in comedy and there is more than truth hidden in this introduction, there is great wisdom for those who have eyes to see. And the theme of today’s thought is the importance of GUTS.

Guts, grit, pluck, bottle, nerve, spirit, chutzpah, mettle, gumption, and for my American friends, spunk! You need it all and you need it in abundance.

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Kidabra by Keith Fields

Keith Fields

Earlier this year I published the first part of ‘If Ever A Wiz There Was’, the idea behind this was to publish my back catalogue of routines for entertaining children and family audiences, but more importantly to give me the enormous personal pleasure that I get from handling a book with my name on it. Yes, I have to confess that the whole thing is just a selfish ego trip, but if it wasn’t then very few of us would publish anything! But in the whole process of planning, writing, photographing, editing, cover designing and tea drinking that goes into a project like this there is one moment that I absolutely dread – that moment is when you have the first consignment of several hundred copies on your doorstep and you have to put your baby out there and see if anyone likes it. Until then it has just been your personal pet project, now other people are going to see it and let you know what they think. Worse than that they could be slagging off what took you 2 years to complete!

Colon 2010 Wed. 125

But I had completed the book, it was printed and I knew I had to show it to someone. To cut a not so long story shorter I will let you into a secret that you already know – people loved the book and it has had some amazing write-ups in several magazines. One of those people was Mark Daniels the organizer of KIDabra and he called me as soon as he had finished it and invited me to speak and perform at the conference for childrens, schools and family entertainers.

I had no idea what to expect! What was it going to be like surrounded by clowns and kids entertainers for a whole week? Would I be able to stand it?

I had heard about KIDabra from some associates and they had generally said that it was a great convention. A few friends make the pilgrimage from the UK to Pigeon Forge every year so it must have something going for it… It had!

continued below…

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A Maverick Magician by Keith Fields

Keith Fields

Bobby Maverick & Keith Fields at Curly's Close-upI recently had a wonderful few days in Colon Michigan, the magic capital of the world. A place that is a quiet sleepy town for 51 weeks a year… then comes Abbots Magical Get Together. About 300 magicians, their spouses and families arrive and double the population of the town. The bars and restaurants, OK, make that the bar and the pizza place, are buzzing with everything from Speed Pizza Eating (won by Dynamike from Detroit), to Curly’s famous 20th Annual Close-Up Competition (won by, ahem, me).

Now regular attendees will tell you: ‘it’s not a convention, it’s a get together’, but the only difference is that what most conventions pack into a weekend takes the folks at Abbots a few more days to get through, the pace is so much more leisurely. One can sit outside the ice-cream shop and eventually meet every attendee in the course of one afternoon.

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