My friends have been challenging me to do this for the past couple of years. Now I have gone forward and accepted the challenge! Can I do it?
You will have to tune in to the show in July to see if I can actually pull this off and be one of the rare few magicians in the world that have indeed fooled Penn & Teller.
Will you be watching?
The Las Vegas Magic Invasion!
Do you remember the 1964 “British invasion?”
The Beatles stormed the USA… creating a new sensation in music.
Now something like that is happening again, only this time it is the LAS VEGAS MAGIC STARS!This summer we are storming Asia and will appear in Macau, Malaysia, Taiwan, and multiple cities all through mainland China.
See the video now:
Learn more about our world tour here: www.lasvegasmagicstars.com
Mesmerizing!
Have you seen my wife Abigail dance? Here is a photo of my amazing wife dancing with the New World Rhythmatism dancers at our Las Vegas magic night club, McBride’s Wonderground. This month Abigail and I are performing together on stage, so come out and see us and all of our surprise guests.
WONDERGROUND News
The biggest magic party in Las Vegas and you are invited! You’ll see new world-class acts appearing this month. For the full lineup, address and times of the show go to: www.vegaswonderground.com
I’ll be seeing you on tour or on TV!
Yours in the great mysteries of life,
Jeff and Abigail
Dear Friends:
June is upon us, and I thought you might enjoy this segment from my new book on building your business as an independent performer. As many of you know, I’ve been working with Jeff McBride for the past 30 years, and Marco Tempest for almost as long. Before that, I got to work on Broadway, as a part of the management teams for several Broadway shows, including the original production of Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street. It was during that time that I learned of the extreme importance of communication, not only in art, but in conducting a business in the arts.
What follows is a section of the new book on that very subject.
Communications
I got my first job on Broadway as a production assistant in the offices of Richard Barr and Charles Woodward when they were producing Sweeney Todd, and I remember being surprised that their work seemed to consist almost entirely of making and receiving phone calls. Charles and Richard sat at opposite ends of one long table, each with a phone in front of them. All day long, they placed and received phone calls, one after another. There were calls with the creative staff—director, designers, composer and author, and others. There were calls with investors, calls with the management company for the show, with lawyers and with accountants, with the theater owners, and later with the office booking our tour of the production. There were calls with all our vendors, the people who made costumes and sets, who placed our advertising, plotted our public relations strategies, etc. Calls, calls, and more calls.
When Charles and Richard went to lunch, they had a phone on their table at the restaurant, and continued to communicate throughout those lunches! This was before the age of personal computers, cell phones or the internet, so virtually all communications started with a phone call. Important calls resulted in letters that summarized the call. But virtually everything that happened on that production was initiated with a phone call—a communication.
It’s essentially the same with any business. If you are the CEO, the one in charge, your job is to make the right decisions, then make sure those decisions are carried out in the best way possible. Your ability to communicate is the most important tool you have to accomplish that.
Here are some examples:
Communication drives success in business! Study all the different possible ways in which communication is possible.
I’m fond of the phrase, “You can’t NOT communicate.†Everything we do—the way we dress, our body language, the tone of our voice, the way we set our stages, the way we answer phones…everything communicates. It communicates something whether you have thought about it or not. So it can really pay to stand back and look at yourself. Watch videos of yourself, not just performing, but interacting with others. Do you handle yourself in a professional, friendly manner when dealing with others? Do you remember to treat everyone you come in contact with as though they are a potential “big client?†Do you dress in a way that sends those who see you the message you want to send as a professional entertainer? Do you always answer the phone in a way that will both impress and help you achieve the mission you’ve defined for your business?
If the answer to any of the above questions is “no,†or even “not always,†and you do want to build a career as a professional performer—you have some work to do! Don’t be discouraged… we all do, and that work can not only make us more successful performers, but will also improve every other aspect of our lives as well.
Jeff McBride will appear on Penn & Teller’s FOOL US in July. Tune in to see if he fools P&T
Are You easily fooled? A recent BBC article explains why our mind is easily fooled.
The real boom in studying illusions began in the 19th Century. A school of scientists who studied perception – among many other things – created simple illusions to shed light on how the brain perceives patterns and shapes, which kick-started the early theories on how our eyes can play tricks on our mind…
One school of thought suggests that some illusions highlight the way the brain constantly tries to predict what will happen. The theory goes that many illusions show that we try to predict the future to compensate for the slight delay between an event and our conscious perception of it. The real boom in studying illusions began in the 19th Century.
The light from these words you are reading has to reach your eye, before a signal travels to the brain to be processed – this takes time, which means the world you perceive is slightly in the past. Mark Changizi, a theoretical neurobiologist, believes the brain may make predictions about your surroundings in order to “perceive the presentâ€.
Read the full article:Â http://www.bbc.com/future/bespoke/story/20150130-how-your-eyes-trick-your-mind/
“You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time. “
–Abraham Lincoln
“Jeff points east towards his upcoming Asian tourâ€
World Tour – ASIA 2017
June, July and August I will be on tour in China with our new show: LAS VEGAS MAGIC STARS!
http://www.lasvegasmagicstars.com
Going with me will be master Illusionist Greg Gleason, Ariann Black, Dean Gunnarson, Will Bradshaw, Bill Cook and Tobias Beckwith.
NEWS FLASH:
Our Magic & Meaning 2017 Guest of Honor will be Mat Franco!
Mat Franco takes the stage in MAGIC REINVENTED NIGHTLY at The LINQ Hotel & Casino with a fun and feel-good twist on magic that defies all expectations. The show was named Best Show by Las Vegas Weekly and featured in the 2016 Best of Vegas awards in the Las Vegas Review-Journal. You’ll remember Mat from his triumphant win on America’s Got Talent.
“Mat Franco with Jeff McBride at a recent Master Classâ€
The Magic & Meaning Conference 2017
“Return of the Mysteries”
To celebrate the 25th year of our school, we will be returning to our roots to explore some of the best loved rites and ceremonies of the past 25 years.
People often ask, “What were the old mystery school days like? Will you ever bring back the activities you did in the early days?â€
YES! Magic & Meaning 2017 will be our Return of the Mysteries.
We’re excited that he’ll be with us for this year’s Magic & Meaning at Sunset Station.
WONDERGROUND NEWS
The Heart & Soul of the Las Vegas Magic CommunityÂ
Our next Mega-Magic Party is May 18th
7:30pm   Will Bradshaw – Showman Extraordinaire!
Strolling magic & Tarot Reading by  Stephanie Castellone
8:00pm   Tim Wise is your MC
John T Sheets – Ingenious Illusions
Lance Johnson -Â Outstanding Variety Artist
Ming Da – Direct from Asia!
Krystal Lawrence – Delightful Deceptions
Jeremy Mikaelson – The award-winning stage show
John Shaw - You won’t believe what you see!
9:00pm   Ming Da
Krystal Lawrence
Lance Johnson
August Meyer
Jason Powers
10:00pm   Jeff McBride is your MC
Jeremy Mikaelson – International Award Winning Illusion
John Shaw – Shock and Awe!
Ming Da – Asian Mysteries
Jamilla Deville – Sensuous Sensation!
Lance Johnson – Smoking Hot Manipulations
John T Sheets – The Modern Mystifier!
PLUS: Photography by Sheryl Garrett. Bar Magic with Zack Pattee, Scott Steelfyre, Corey Rubino, Taylor Lloyd, New World Rhythmatism Belly Dancers, Psychic Sideshow with Alan Scott, live art with Areeya – and many more surprises and special celebrity guests!!
The day after WONDERGROUND I will be performing at one of the magic events of the year! BEYOND BROOKLEDGE!
Stay and Play in a Palace of Dreams
“The best way to describe Beyond Brookledge is that it’s as if somebody fit the L.A. Opera and Burning Man into the Magic Castle, and then had a three-day slumber party.”
– LA Weekly
“This is your chance to be immersed in performances, and community, with the most amazing magicians, comedians, and performance artists you’ll ever find hanging around a 5 star hotel… Join this party!” – Boing Boing
FOR MORE INFO:Â http://www.beyondbrookledge.com/#about
With magical best wishes.
Your friend,
Jeff McBride
We are delighted to have another article by our Dean, Eugene Burger, for you this month:
THE PATH OF COLLABORATION
Eugene Burger
Museletter May, 2017
Sometimes getting our (magic) act together isn’t easy. We are close to being ready to debut our performance, but we hesitate. There are so many unresolved issues, so many questions, so much doubt. Yet if the curtain never rises, we are trapped in our thoughts. and we face the danger of never putting our magic into the real world. This is a problem for many performers. Is there anything that can be done about it? Is there a way to move our inaction to action?
Let me recommend a path that I have followed for the entire length of my professional career. I began this path, in fact, before I became a professional magician. It is the path of collaboration, the way of working with others to accomplish our goals. I have found this a way to get things and myself moving, a way to end inaction and move to genuine action.
My first magical collaboration began in the mid-1970’s. I had always dreamed of putting together a séance show, and even had a title for the show in my mind: “Hauntings.†But I was stuck. The idea remained no more than an idea; a thought. Then one night when I was explaining my dream to my friend Erik Counce, he enthusiastically said he would love to join me in putting this show together. Two other friends, Dennis Rook and Marcella Ruble, also joined in, and suddenly I had a little company dedicated to realizing the dream of creating a séance show.
We worked well together. Collaborating with others helped me move my dream into reality. In less than a year the show debuted and was very successful. In fact, the show was one of the primary things that helped convince me to move into full-time professional magic.
Over the years, I have collaborated with Jeff McBride on many shows — and that collaboration continues today. I have also worked with Max Maven and Tina Lenert on a show called, “The Nocturnal Trio.â€
In 2010 I collaborated with my friend Michael Carbonaro on a show in the Peller Theater at the Magic Castle. We worked together again in 2012, giving the show a name, “Dark Stories,†and a more formal structure. We repeated it in 2014 and 2015. We also performed it at James Randi’s Conference in Las Vegas and at a Genii convention in Florida.
In 2013, when Michael was involved with his wonderful television show “The Carbonaro Effect,†I collaborated in the Peller Theater with Rob Zabrecky. Rob and I repeated this in 2016 with the title, “Fun and Games with Eugene Burger and Zabrecky.â€
Larry Hass and I have collaborated for several years now, mounting about a dozen séance shows at Muhlenberg College in Pennsylvania and at Austin College in Texas. For one of the Muhlenberg shows, Michael Carbonaro joined us to be an audience-member-turned-medium who, when the lights came up, had disappeared. Larry and I have also performed non-séance shows together at colleges, conventions, and the Magic Castle.
Collaboration may be a path that you might consider. You can learn a great deal from working with others who are as dedicated as you are. And sometimes, collaboration may help us move our magical dreams from ideas to reality. Think about it.