How do you prepare for a show? As an occasional performer, one doesn’t have the same advantages a frequent performer has. To a great extent, performing regularly reduces the amount of practice and rehearsal necessary before any given show. But if you only perform a dozen or so shows a year, you need more than just a quick run through to get ready for a show. Because of this I have adopted a more organized approach to get the most out of my practice and rehearsal time.
Before I get started, though, I’d like to echo something that magician Al Munro once said to me: practice and rehearsal are two completely different things! For me, “practice” refers to mastering the physical moves necessary to carry out a trick. For example, doing the French Drop over and over and over again to make it invisible. It also includes the work involved in learning the sequence of sleights involved within a specific routine – going from an Elmsley Count to a Double Turnover to a Jordan count in a packet trick, for example. “Rehearsal”, on the other hand, refers to perfecting the presentation of an effect. (Please notice the difference between “trick” and “effect” in these definitions.)
In general, I would argue that you shouldn’t include a routine in your show if you still need to practice it. You should practice the moves of a routine over and over and over again until you can do them without looking at them and without even thinking about them. Once you have learned a routine thoroughly, you will have to practice it occasionally to maintain it, but this practice time should not be confused with rehearsing for a show. In many ways, rehearsing is more important than practicing. Despite this, far too many occasional performers pay very little attention to the rehearsal process.
So you’ve got a show lined up, you’ve practiced your tricks, you’ve written out a full script for your show, you’ve “blocked” or laid out your physical movements on stage, and you know what you’re going to be wearing and what you’ll be holding your props in – now you’re ready to rehearse. If you haven’t done any of this, you’re still planning a show, not preparing it. Once you have all of these prepared, you’re ready to start rehearsing.
In general, I begin by rehearsing each routine individually. If possible, I always wear what I’m going to wear on stage and position my props as they would be in my performance. I then begin saying my script out loud and physically performing the routine just as if I were performing for an audience. I don’t care if I do the sleights of a trick improperly – I use this time to focus on presentation only. At first I will experiment with different ways of saying each line, different facial expressions or gestures, different timings, etc. This process involves a lot of starting and stopping, a lot of repetition, and a lot of self-awareness. Once I’m happy with the presentation, my rehearsal focuses on maintaining and enhancing that presentation so that it will be identical each time I perform it.
Next, I rehearse the entire show from beginning to end. This includes not only my entrance (physically walking onto the stage before I even say anything) to my closing wave and exit. Again, I wear what I will wear on stage and I have my props set up. Again, I say my script out loud and physically perform each trick. I also focus on my transitions between routines. I practice putting props away and bringing out new ones. I think about how I will get volunteers off the stage and back to their seats. If I use music, I will start and stop the music as necessary. I think about how I want the audience to react, where I want their attention directed, and what I should be feeling at certain points in the performance.
I’ve recently started audio recording my rehearsals. I listen to my rehearsals while driving in my car. I find it helps with learning lines and making their delivery automatic. It also allows you to listen to your show just as an audience would, allowing you to critique and improve your performance. You can do the same with video, except the driving part.
Rehearsing magic does have some unique difficulties associated with it. A lot of magic involves a spontaneous interaction between the magician and a spectator. While it may appear that these routines cannot be rehearsed, it is actually more important to rehearse these routines as fully as possible. Whenever you introduce an element that is outside of your control into your show (such as inviting a spectator on stage), you need to be as prepared as possible to keep things on track. The truth is, those spontaneous interactions are not all that spontaneous. People tend to react the same ways and say the same things. When unpredictable things do occur, if you’ve rehearsed your routine thoroughly, you will be able to handle the situation with grace.
As I mentioned in an earlier essay, I’ve been performing roughly the same show for years. This has allowed me to cut back my rehearsal time significantly. Still, if I haven’t performed for over a month, I will generally do a full run-through rehearsal each day for a week before a show. For a half hour show, this generally takes about 45 minutes a day. The more regularly I perform, the less time I need to rehearse.
Finally, one of the most effective tools I use for both practicing and rehearsing is visualization. The sports psychology literature refers to this as “mental rehearsal”. I have to warn you, that the rest of this essay gets a bit technical and may not be everyone’s cup of tea. I can only say that I first started using visualization techniques when I first learned to juggle. I found them indispensable as I learned more and more complex tricks. And I was pleasantly surprised to find they transferred perfectly to preparing for a show.
Essentially, mental rehearsal and mental practice involves preparing for an important upcoming event through creative visualizations in order to produce consistently high-level performances. The idea is to imagine yourself performing at your very best in an upcoming situation. By using your imagination, you stimulate and alert your neurology to a particular direction, triggering self-organizing, cybernetic processes which begin to automatically and unconsciously work towards achieving the outcomes you have imagined. In other words, “Energy flows where attention goes.”
In a nutshell, mental rehearsing is simply picturing yourself doing a move or performing a routine over and over again in your head. There are, however, a few extra points that will help you get the most out of your mental rehearsal.
When visualizing yourself performing, your visualizations should be as vivid as possible. They should go beyond just simple sight and include sight, touch, and emotion. You should be able to see a sleight being done or a joke being told, you should be able to feel the prop in your hand, you should be able to hear your own voice, and you should be able to hear the reaction of the audience. You should be able to feel your own emotional response to your successful performance. Make your visualizations bright and colorful and fun. Make it three-dimensional. Visualize it in slow motion and at super speed. The more specific your imagery, the more you will gain from it.
For practicing a specific trick or sleight, I generally use an “internal” or “associated” visualization. That is, I imagine myself doing the moves from my own perspective. I’m a participant in the action, not an observer. I look down and see my hands as I usually see them and I imagine them performing the moves flawlessly. I focus on the physical feelings or kinesthetic aspects of the experience. This helps improve the motor skills and helps make the actual movements within a sleight automatic.
For rehearsing a performance, I find an “external” or “disassociated” visualization more effective. That is, I imagine myself as an outside observer watching some other “me” performing the routine. More specifically, I do the following:
- I make a list of all of the characteristics associated with an excellent theatrical or magical performance – high energy, funny, easy going, etc. I also include any character elements I want to include in my performance.
- I get comfortable and close my eyes. In my mind’s eye, I picture the setting of an upcoming show. I picture the stage and the audience. I imagine that I’m sitting in the back row with a good view of both the audience and the stage. Sometimes I even picture myself in a Plexiglass bubble so that I’m truly separated and detached from the activities about to go on with the “other me” on stage. (Sometimes I picture Angelina Jolie in the bubble with me. But that’s a different visualization…)
- Once the visual scene is set, I watch as the “other me” walks on stage and starts the show. I watch every movement. I hear every line. I see the audience reacting in the way I want them to react. I see the “other me” reacting to the audience’s reactions. I see the “other me” delighted with his performance and enjoying the rewards of a good show. I see a perfect performance and a perfect audience. If anything isn’t perfect, I “rewind the movie” and play it again, making any changes necessary. I focus my image on what I want to do, not on what I don’t want to do (that is, I don’t say “I just don’t want to bomb”, I say “I want the audience to laugh at this specific line.”). I picture the positive results both for me and for my audience. I pay attention to what is achieved and how attractive that achievement is.
- At some point, when I am completely satisfied with the way my mental show is progressing, I let the Plexiglass bubble fall away and draw into myself that “other me”.
Ok, I’ll admit this is a bit out there for some people, but I’ve gotten excellent results from this in the past. It’s great for developing brand new material. It’s also perfect for working on routines that rely on a lot of audience participation where you can’t really physically rehearse in a practical sense (a lot of mind reading routines come to mind here). And it’s something you can do for ten minutes after getting into bed and before going to sleep.
Proper rehearsal is crucial to the success of any performance. I’ve found that over-preparing for a show allows me to enjoy my time on stage more. It reduces stage fright, it puts me in the right frame of mind, and it allows me to spend my time on stage thinking about my audience rather than thinking about me.
