On this episode of the MF podcast we welcome Trevor Whittow. Trevor talks about what it’s like to be a professional clown, what it takes to get to that point and what sort of coaching he received that helped him along his path.
He also explains how magic helped him get on stage as a kid and how he has learned to separate his career from his hobbies. A fantastic conversation with an actual professional clown.
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There’s a levitation illusion going around, and there’s something I don’t like about it. Before I go any further, the illusion is fine, there’s just a visual thing that I don’t like. If you can get past this, than it’s a great trick.
Here’s the style of levitation, I think the two pics below are different makers.
What I dislike is the cloth wrapped around the person floating. Specifically how it dangles on the end. This is also my issue with most chair suspension routines. The cloth really serves no purpose, aside from hiding the method.
I get that you can justify the cloth as it’s a magic cloth that makes people float…but then why isn’t all of the cloth floating and some of it dangling?
Yes, most levitations of a human have do deal with gravity. In my opinion the dangling of the hair and dress make the illusion look better visually. Where the cloth wrap doesn’t look anywhere are good as the person uncovered.
I understand that it’s not real magic, and you have to make concessions to hide the method. That’s a valid artistic choice, to have a purpose in your show for a levitation and due to venue limitations you need to use a method that you might not like to move the show forward.
Personally for me, I’d save the levitation for a theater where it can be done without the trade off of having to wrap the person with a cloth.
-Louie
For a few gigs this summer I’m going to be doing the straitjacket wrapped in 50+ feet of chain escape. One thing I started doing about a 8 years ago when I first started playing with the straitjacket and chains was take off the crotch strap.
Here’s before and after pictures of the straight jacket:
I realized that no one knows the crotch strap is missing if it’s not there. I discovered this when I was visiting the Oregon State Museum of Mental Health about 10 years ago. There was a straitjacket on display and it didn’t have a crotch strap and the information placard said that they weren’t used as a restraint, but to keep people from unconsciously doing self harm, Like thru scratching themselves.
Most people rely on the crotch strap as the main point of humor in their routine. I decided I didn’t want to do any crotch strap jokes, so there’s no loss there. Sure my routine may be funnier, but it’s not what I want to put out there as my art.
-Louie
Years ago when I wanted to become a more “national” act, one of the things that I did was try to do something nationally newsworthy to send to agents twice a year. Twice a year turned into doing it quarterly and then monthly.
What exactly the definition of “nationally newsworthy” is, I’m not sure. Roughly it’s things that I can tell agents about and it raises my status from local Seattle magician to something bigger.
That’s where doing things like writing an article for a mainstream magazine comes in. It’s makes me an “expert” on magic, not just a local magician. Do things like this make the quality of my show better?
Nope.
Things like this raise the perception of the quality of my show. For getting work from a new agent or work at another level that’s something important!
-Louie
Here’s all of my street show props packed into the wagon that they’ll travel in.
This is everything, including the sound system. It’s important that the show is very mobile and sets up quickly! This show will be starting this week, so we’ll see how much the set up and packing changes by the end of the week!
-Louie
A few months ago I was performing at an event with Ky Dobson and his Wagon of Whimsy. This is a pedal tractor that pulls a wagon that’s got a buttons that do all sorts of funny things, and he tells jokes and does magic and juggling. Ky is a trained clown, and very personable.
He wanted a something to do with an egg that was dinosaur related. This is what we came up with:
Ky had some dinosaur parts and for me the obvious thing was using the dinosaur head like Bob Farmer’s Little Hand trick. It’s a fun simple little trick that was getting great reactions from the kids!
-Louie
Frequently I have to perform for news or morning shows to promote my shows at public gigs. They can be challenging. The last fair I was at they had me do two morning news shows at the same time! I didn’t know about the second one until I got on site at 6am!
One of the things that makes these challenging is that you don’t know how much material you’re doing until you’re there. I ended up doing 3 three minute bits and 4 one minute bits. While that doesn’t sound like a lot of material, it all had to be different and something that I could wrap up at any point due to time.
The thing with doing media that’s not is a studio is that you don’t know how you’re doing timewise. A bit could run long…or a producer could cut your bit short and you don’t know until you’re cut short in the middle of the routine!
When I do media, I like to do the routine for the host off camera so they know what’s going to happen. That way they know whether they need to cue me to wrap up, or if I’m already close to the end. That little bit of pre-planning makes a huge difference!
-Louie
Recently in a Facebook group someone was asking about a way to make it look like their puppet was drinking. My Evaporation prop was mentioned and I immediately had some people ask me how to use the prop with one hand.
It’s not hard, here’s how:
Enjoy having your puppet drink!
-Louie
A few nights ago I saw Amy Schumer perform at a theater in Seattle. She was great! Amy has a very defined character and point of view. That point of view may not be for everyone, but when you get to her level, “everyone” isn’t your audience. As a stand up, you need a point of view, and that’s to to eliminate some people who don’t agree with you.
Going into the theater, they had us lock our phones up in little pouches. This is becoming more and more common. I think that we as a culture have proven our inability to keep our phones in our pockets during a show, even after a no photo/recording announcement.
My first thought was that these pouches would be great to do a Key-R-Rect or 7 Keys to Baldplate style trick with. You’d just need to put grommets on both sides of the flap. Now you can borrow or use your phone and put it in and do the key trick with it.
The challenge would be getting one of these. It doesn’t look like they sell them direct to the public, so you’d need to find someone who goes to a school that uses them, buy theirs, and have them say they lost theirs.
I haven’t thought of a routine yet…but I think it’s a good prop for locking up a cellphone.
-Louie
In this episode of the Moisture Festival Podcast we triangulate locations over zoom and welcome in Just Felice. We learn about how she got started in magic, how she wrote her thesis on street performing and how that inspired her to start doing street shows herself.
We also learn about how she uses her comedy to turn stereotypes on it’s head and what inspired her to take that approach. She also teaches us what an Ethnographer is and how to pronounce it. A great conversation with a great mind in the performing world.
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