This week we take a look at what takes place in the off season! As a theater attraction, we obviously can operate during all 4 seasons but we definitely pull back a bit in the winter months for a few reasons. The most notable reason is changes to the show.
If you’ve attended the Rick Wilcox show more than once then you know it’s never the exact same show... ever. Even I attended with only a month between shows and it wasn’t the same show. The order had changed and there were 3 new tricks. This is a testament to the level of work that is being done behind the scenes to keep the show fresh and progressive.
Most people don’t know it but illusions are practiced until they’re perfected. Rick and Susan won’t put something in the show that doesn’t look polished. In this week’s video Rick explains just how much work is going on behind the scenes when the lights go down.
I believe the term for this is a watershed moment. That moment when someone like Michael Jordan first touched a basketball, when Dale Earnhart first touched a steering wheel. When Rick Wilcox first touched a carrot. :) I know right, they’re good for things other than your eyesight though.
This week Rick talks to us about the first trick he performed for people. I am sure like Jordan or the Intimidator, he couldn’t actually tell you the first time he touched a trick and knew that would become his life’s work. People who give themselves to a discipline on that level typically have those talents as part of their cognitive development process.
You will see Rick in the video say “I think it was….” Because the truth is he actually doesn’t remember what his first trick was. I would wager that he was rubbing coins on his elbow in his baby crib at some point.
Spider Man had his spider bite, (back in my day it was
radioactive, today it is genetically modified) Super Man had Krypton,
even Goku had planet Vegeta. Somewhere, however you slice it, we all
have an origin story. Origin stories are important. They are the
beginnings of our individuality, the fabric of our moral fiber, the
first steps in our walk of life.
In ancient times I
imagine that magicians were seen as heroes. Special and not like us.
Some were gifted with slight of hand and some like Archimedes were just
completely technically adept. Our own Les Paul was called the Wizard of
Waukesha because he could envision things that others simply couldn’t.
From
my standpoint, this is the class that I see Rick Wilcox in. The
illusions in the show are massive in scale. The amount of determination
that it takes to master a trick for “up-close” magic is impressive. Rick
showed me one up close trick that he said took six months to perfect.
That amount of discipline for one trick is impressive. Some tricks take
two years worth of practice and development before they are implemented
in the show.
It led me to wonder; What was Rick’s Origin
Story? How did he begin? Who did he look up to? Well wonder no more
because we now have the story from the man himself! Here it is! Please
share for us and just a heads up our next show is Saturday Oct 1st!
I asked Rick Wilcox what he looks for when he selects an audience member for participation in the show. He said the biggest thing was making sure that whoever participates doesn’t feel like they're being made fun of. Rick is a master at making a participant feel like a star by the time they leave the stage. Their dignity and self-esteem is intact, and they know they contributed to a magical, memorable moment. Hopefully after watching the video and hearing Rick speak about it himself, we all will feel comfortable enough to raise our hands.
We all know that moment, the moment when that person on stage takes a look at us and asks us to participate in a moment on stage. For some of us it’s a moment of excitement, hand held high while yelling “me me me me”!!! For others this is an opportunity to practice our evolutionary prowess and see if we can’t conjure the genetic markers of a chameleon.
I think I am like most people, I fall squarely in between both extremes. I don’t go out of my way to be selected, however if I am selected I swallow my butterflies and I give it the old college try. I have been asked to sing, I have been asked to dance, but never had I, like a lot of people, been asked to participate in a magic trick.
That does a lot to spark a person’s interest. By nature magic and illusions are spectacles and have their own level of scrutiny attached to them without me fumbling around in the middle of a magician’s act. Which brings me to the video that we have this week.
Mind you I just listed all of the insecurities that I face when I attend a show and his response told me that he understands those complexities of audience participation. That’s a big thing because in the end, I think that’s what prevents most of us from raising our hands to participate.
Don’t forget we have a show tonight! Thanks for watching and please share!
Greetings and happy Labor Day. Today is a special day for us because we’re going to do something that we haven’t attempted before so hopefully it goes well. Today we’re going to put the magic in your hands with a trick that we’re going to teach you.
Rick WIlcox has his 25 Amazing Card Tricks Video that is available at www.rickwilcox.com in the magic shop. We thought it would be a killer idea to teach you all a trick so we created a series of “How To” stills that are available on our Pinterest page.
The best part is that all you’ll need is a deck of cards and a few minutes to learn the trick. This is excellent for someone who wants to try their hand at magic or just wants a quick entertainment talking point for their friends and family. Give the trick a shot and let us know what you think!
Technology and the digital age have changed everything about the way that we live. I mean think about it, you no longer have the annual Yellow Pages popping up on your doorstep helping you to index services when you’re looking for something. The physical mediums for movies and music have changed too. We have traded our VHS, DVDs, CDs, Vinyl and Cassettes in for Netflix, Hulu and Spotify.
I am not telling you anything new, you’re teaching your kids on tablets, not the abacus. Our younger readers don’t even know what an abacus is, that’s what I am talking about. As you’re reading this, consider that this writing is today’s marketing. Remember when the Blues Brothers were promoting their show? The put a speaker on the Blues Mobile and drove it around town asking people to come to their show.
Technology has forever changed and the world has changed along with it. From the days of the first printing press to the last bit of data streamed, It is our reality. Changes in tech have impacted the Rick Wilcox Theater in ways that I am sure Rick and Susan couldn’t see coming and that’s what this week’s video is about.
How has technology improved or impacted your life? As always, we are listening and want to know. Talk to you soon.
Who knows you better than you do? I mean really? You spouse? Yes, Siblings, yep! Children? Yep. We naturally as individuals with personal sovereignty usually reject their synapses of who we are and how we react to our situations and day to day decision. We have all had someone we know say “Well I didn’t tell you because I knew you would ______.” As a person I would say, you’re wrong I wouldn’t have ______ but the reality is, regardless to what I might say, that someone on the outside can always see more than the person on the inside.
That’s what made this an interesting story for me. I think that we as people genuinely have an aversion to criticisms about our actions. Rick and Susan truly don’t though. They take the opinions of everyone around them to heart and seek to improve their business every step of the way. We as friends watch the show and if we see something awry we point it out and work with them to make the adjustment.
Don’t take my word for it, watch this week’s video and see just how much Rick and Susan value and seek advice from their circle. We would also love to hear who’s opinion you seek and trust as well. What does their input mean to your life?
Welcome to the digital age my friends. You live in the moment of NOW! If you’re anywhere around my age (which I will not disclose) you can remember when television stations signed off for the evening. Then they were on 24/7, then you got cable and cable begat the DVR, now you go to Netflix and you choose what you want to watch, when and for how long!
Well in this day and age of choosing and tiny computers in the hands of everyone in America, there has been a significant shift in the attention spans of all of us, myself included. That’s fine if it’s me multitasking a blog post while half-watching Daredevil on Netflix but how does that impact a magic show?
People don’t realize it but Harry Houdini escape tricks weren’t 2 minute episodes. They were escape tricks with real cops, real cuffs, real straight jackets, real heights and submersion. These feats could last an hour and you know what people were doing while waiting for the great escape artists of old to "prestidigitate" right before their very eyes? They waited, that’s right they waited and chatted with each other postulating on the odds of the escape artist’s survival chances.
That’s a significant amount of time to see if someone is going to pop out of a padlocked crate. If Rick were to attempt an act that lasted that long, he wouldn’t return to the same size audience that he left there as I am sure some would opt to read about it here than stick around. This week’s video is about the change in the attention span of our audiences and how it impacts the show.
Drop your comments below, we would love to discuss them with you.
Thanks for reading and talk with you soon, Chris T.
Throughout the course of the Rick Wilcox Show, audience members are brought up on stage. Rick brings any and everyone up from a 5 year old to the grandparents that bring them. It’s a part of the show, it’s what he does. That part of the show for him though, does something for the little ones. They tend to walk away with that spark in their eyes that changes lives.
After 19 seasons in the Rick Wilcox Theater, you can imagine that there have been a boatload of children through there. That’s significant because as a social media manager, I am regularly receiving messages from today’s new crop of magicians who are directly citing their experiences with Rick as a part of their decision to pursue their magical paths.
It’s like the Bill Walsh coaching tree in football. I show you, you show someone else and art and legacy are preserved through impression, imitation and mastery. This week’s video covers Rick’s thoughts on the topic as well as the magician that took time to meet and influence him.
Which leads me to this week’s question, who influenced your path in life? We would love to know! Enjoy the video and talk with you soon!
So you say you want to be a performer eh? There’s a lot of practice that goes into being a professional entertainer. The craft is one thing. If you’re a singer, it’s the notes. If you’re a comedian, it’s the jokes. If you’re a dancer, it’s the moves like Jagger! (Yeah baby, i went there)
The point is that it takes a lot to be entertaining not just a one off move but a sequence of carefully planned events.
In the case of Rick and Susan we have to be concerned with lighting, sound, timing, and body movement. Rick and Susan don’t come out and trip the light fantastic when they’re on stage but they have a series of well timed and thought out movements that aren’t by accident.
If you have never seen the show (which obviously you should), the lights and music are synchronized to the second. When the wow moment happens the music shifts and the lights do to. Now imagine if at the end of every trick, rick took a knee and threw his hands up in the air like an NFL Running Back. After the first knee you would be like “That’s awesome, he took a knee!!!” Then after like the 5th of 6th knee you’d say, “He doesn’t know anymore poses?”
If it were me, I would just keep taking knees lol but it isn’t me, it’s Rick Wilcox and he always goes the extra mile. So being the bar-setters that he and Susan are, they bring in professional choreographers to help them put the polish on their poses. This week’s video is all about that!
Have you ever taken dance lessons? The most I have ever done was the “Hustle/Electric Slide”. I did take swimming and music lessons though. I got pretty good at both. What lessons have you taken, do you use what you have learned still today? We would love to hear about it.
Batman of course had Robin, Sherlock Holmes had Watson, Rick Wilcox had his sister! That’s right, his original first assistant! In all fairness we are talking about 15 year old Rick taking on the mountain that was a kids dream and the support of his family to help him achieve his goals.
Rick was working in magic before he was old enough to work. So this wasn’t a fly by night situation for either of them, this was a job. In this week’s video Rick talks to us about time where his assistant (sister) was violated by the acts third participant. It’s a pretty entertaining tale that will get a wild “Hare” of a laugh out of you for sure.
Please feel free to share any stories that you have with us about assisting gone awry, as always, we are reading them.
Greetings friends and welcome to this week’s topic. Today we are talking about “Home Field Advantage." Now most of us would attribute that term to sports, but I want to take that home field advantage and give it a more personal twist. Dorothy said there’s no place like home for a reason, there really isn’t.
There are comforts and advantages that “Home” offers us that you just can’t get anywhere else. Most people don’t know it but for a time after they bought the theater, Rick and Susan actually lived in the theater. This isn’t just a building for them, this is home.
Home does more than afford comfort for the Wilcox family though. It also improves the quality of the show that they are able to perform day in and day out. That’s the big advantage for the guests that come see the show. In this week’s video, Rick expresses how that impacts the show. (see below)
I love to grill food and I don’t think I would be as effective grilling at someone else’s home as I would my own. We would love to hear what advantages home has for your crafts and hobbies, leave your “Home” story below, we love reading them.
One new addition to this year’s show is the Time Machine that Rick Wilcox has. It isn’t a Delorian and doesn’t need to achieve a certain speed to travel. With magic, it whisks people away to a magical place that gives them special abilities.
The illusion is an excellent addition to the show, and now that you have some background on what it does, I think it’s noteworthy to discuss how these things come about. There are moments in time that inspire songwriters, directors and creatives in general. While people usually don’t consider it, magicians are in many ways more creative than most other performing or disciplined artists.
They take life experiences and moments and weave them into tales about how one’s niece enjoyed blowing bubbles or an illusion that a long lost loved one would have loved. Magicians like Rick answer questions for kids like, “What does snow look like?’ The time machine is no different and this week’s video shows us how Rick and Susan came up with the idea.
What trick would you like to see performed and what inspires you to want to see it? Leave your comments below, we are reading and enjoying them.
Greetings friends! Have you ever had your moment of glory on stage and dropped the ball? For some of us a couple of drinks at a karaoke bar is pretty much all we need to accomplish that. For others it can be a speech or a play and they forget the lines. You see where this is going right?
How many opportunities are there for things to go wrong in a magic act? Do your birds fly away? Does the curtain come up exposing the workings of something that the audience shouldn’t see? I am sure that there are multiple things a magician could point out as going wrong that most of us just never consider.
We would love to know what public moments you’ve had where things could have gone much better. Please leave your comments below and watch this week’s video where Rick shares a disastrous moment with us.
If you have never been to the Rick Wilcox Theater, you should stop what you’re doing right now and go there. If it’s locked just wait there will be another show soon. You could just visit the website to see when we will actually be open at www.rickwilcox.com
That’s not the point of this post though! The point of this post is the special door that one can’t enter through. It is a door to nowhere, a door with no remorse, a door whose very foundation is forged in the same inspiration that mused Jack Napier to put on the pancake make up and terrorize the city of gotham with chattering teeth and a squirting carnation. LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, it is………. the GOTCHA DOOR!
Check this video out as we have a bit of fun with some of our guests! Muh huh huh huh ha ha ha ha haaaaaaa.
History has a few examples of people who performed while under the weather. One great example of that was the Michael Jordan Flu Game. For those of you who don’t know the story, MJ was sick for game 5 of the NBA finals which the bulls won by 3 points but it was a big to do because he was on IV’s and collapsed right after the game. Jordan played most of the game, and he needed to for the win, but didn’t have to because he had a back-up player on the bench.
Let me tell you folks, sports is one of the few places on the planet where one has a backup. I imagine broadway perhaps might have a stand in who knows most of the lines to a performance, but in a magic show? Forget about it (as they say in the film Donnie Brasco).
A magician’s show props and assistant are his or hers alone. There isn’t a stunt double or a person who you can call and say, “hey Pete I have the flu, can you come do the show for me?” Nope, you can’t do that.
You also have to be careful about your activities outside of the show. A car accident or a slip and fall can put a serious ding in the act. It is a tenuous line to walk that not many people really consider. Who covers for you when you get sick? I would love to know what your options are. Leave your responses below!
In this week’s video, Rick and Susan discuss how they cope with being under the weather.
Greetings dear friends. We hope that this summer is treating you well and you are enjoying sunshine, good food and good times. This time of year where families all over the world are traveling and more importantly forgetting things. People forget small things like toothbrushes or maybe deodorant.
What happens if a magician forgets something when she or he travels? Does a rabbit not pop out of the hat? Do the flowers not appear from the magic wand? Or, do the ankles just distract the audience when a performer forgets their socks?
You see there was this one time when Rick forgot his socks, that’s right socks. Being the McGuyver kind of guy that he is, he McGuyvered a solution. It was a painful solution but it got him through the night none the less. We would love it if you shared some things you have left behind with us. Leave your comments below.
At this show (see video) there was a guy from London, England who had delayed his return trip so that he could take his son to the show. As a performer, you don’t get to hear that if you split right after the show is over. This is just one of the many discussions that you can hear at the fireplace in the Rick Wilcox Theater. . .
I think that there are two different people who attend the Rick Wilcox show. There are those who beat it for the door trying to get out of the theater with haste so as to avoid the traffic, this is typically me at any event :). Then there’s the person who knows that the show isn’t over. It’s kind of like going to a Marvel movie. You wait for those credits to be over because there is something there for you at the end.
I have done my fair share of concerts and shows to know that when the curtain drops the performer who has given us as much energy as he or she can muster is usually in need of re-hydration and relaxation. There are a few select performers though who have a reserve tank left in them and they use this reserve for the “Meet and Greet”.
If you have never had a Meet and Greet with a performer, you are missing an experience that goes along with the show. Well let me back up a minute, most performers charge for their meet and greet and autograph sessions as a VIP package for their bottom line. There are also those that want to meet their fans, they want to shake their hands and commune with them. This is the category that Rick and Susan both fall in.
When their show is over, they let the people get into the lobby and then poof, they appear in the magic fireplace. It is here that they shake hands, take pictures and sign autographs.
Watch this week’s video to hear some of them and I’ll reach out to you next week with another Inside Story.
The words for today are “Oleo Background”. That’s a term for those fancy motorized background that move around during a stage show. One thing that you will learn in Entertainment is that there isn’t always a place that you can go and buy something. This is where there are prop makers and set designers and what not. Their jobs are to craft what doesn’t already exist.
Believe it or not, a lot of the things that you see in Rick Wilcox’s show are custom made and if there are more than one of them, they are truly limited edition. I asked Rick where new illusions come from and there are illusion makers. There is also the theater of the mind. This is a place where illusions are craftedand conjured before they are created.
I looked over some photos that rock had sent me and I saw sketches in there for a new illusion and the mechanics in them. I think it starts with what you want the audience to see and you figure out how to make it work after that.
This week’s video shows how Rick came up with the Oleo Background that looks like a medieval castle and how the person that he enlisted to make this effect happen created yet another one of a kind piece that can only be viewed in the Rick Wilcox Theater.
Check out the video below and we will talk to you next week!
Have you ever been to Arizona? Better yet, has the state of Arizona changed your career path for you? In this week’s video, Rick talks about how he got Susan to become part of the show, I won’t paraphrase his words, I will let the video speak for itself. It is a tale of reluctant heroism.
Performing most often is something you’re born with. Some of us enjoy being on stage and presenting our talent for entertainment and others of us not so much. Surprisingly, Susan is part of the latter. It is a true testimony to perseverance. There is a flow of comfort to her presence on stage that glues the transitions in the show together. This is true professionalism. It impresses me that she had to grow to that point and Susan has done it well.
Here is the video of Rick and Susan discussing how she came in to join the show.
The decision is yours to make, choose wisely. Other than that, you’re welcome to shop and buy as many outfits as you’re sure that you’re going to wear. This week is a pretty indulging post for me because it deals with something that I love to do which is shop for clothes. I loooooooooove shopping for clothes.
I am sure that you shopaholics out there can feel me on this one. I actually do get an adrenaline rush out of it. It’s pretty exhilarating throwing clothes into the basket knowing that I just scored an awesome deal. I walk into a store with a budget in mind and always walk out over budget :). Then when I know I am getting close to my limit or well over the limit I get a slight sense of panic and begin to think about what I should put back, that’s all the experience for me.
I wasn’t thinking much about that when I asked Susan Wilcox about her performing wardrobe. I had my mind on wondering about special magical apparatus that allows her to produce helicopters and what not on command and what I got from both Susan and Rick was absolutely one of the cuter vignettes that we shot.
Simply put, for Susan the clothes stay fresh to help keep the show fresh for her. If you haven’t been to the show, you have to go because the number of clothing changes that she pulls off during the course of the show feels like it’s somewhere in the ballpark of about 20. That’s a pretty big time show. I am impressed when I go to a concert and see an artist on stage have 1 clothing change, Susan Wilcox is pulling off Lady Gaga numbers!
In this week’s video, Rick and Susan talk about the clothes of the Rick Wilcox show and it’s a very entertaining watch. Talk to you all next week.
Part of what I think makes a good show is the stimulation of the senses. Performers like Rick Wilcox stimulates places in our brains that are associated with wonders and amazement. The sights, sounds and energy all collide to make a great show. You feel the pulse of the show through the music and subsonic frequencies rattling your seats. You have a great talent on stage guiding you through a well rehearsed performance.
One thing that a lot of people typically never consider about a show though is the lighting. Great lighting can be the difference between a thrilling adventure and a side stage performance at your local shopping mall on a Saturday afternoon. This past winter Rick and Susan Wilcox took a break from performing to redo the entire theater lighting system. That act was a performance all to itself.
Before any new lighting could be installed, all of the old lighting had to be removed. Yes so step one, dismantle an entire theater’s lighting system. Step 2, install new lighting system. That’s easy enough, hang em up and plug em in, Check! Now get yourself a lighting console that is suited for a Metallica show plug all the lights up to it and program a new set up for each trick in the show.
Yeah, it isn’t as easy as saying, “Go from red to blue Rick.” The aim of the lights, the marks on the stage, the color of the props, the color of wardrobe. Do I want neon paint for a black light trick? I mean we have talked about Rick’s catalog before when I asked him what his favorite trick was and when you consider the sheer magnitude of tricks and illusions that he has to choose from, there are literally hundreds of lighting combinations that can be considered.
Then let’s not forget “standards.” These are illusions that are fan favorites that people come to the show to see each time they come. One person came to a show and their favorite trick wasn’t in it and believe you me, we were asked what happened to it online. For a lot people these performances conjure memorable emotions. It takes them back to moments in time that they want to relive remember and be happy with. My point is, a new lighting system has to produce the same effect that the old one did or else it begins to alter that memory for some people. Kind of like your morning coffee, it just has to be.
In the video below, Rick and Susan discuss what it took to put the new lighting system in and what it takes to keep up with its complexities. Hope you enjoyed the read and I look forward to talking with you next week.
