Photo by Chris Nash , MBE
a soap boxy show piece for a fully awake assistant who is in fact calling the shots . Several reliable sources have confirmed that Josephine is also the first in the world to contort while she levitates , nonetheless . In the show we also feature two interpretations of routines made famous by Houdini . These are a needle swallowing act and the metamorphosis . And I ’ m also proud to report that we may have made magic history because this show has only one card trick . ( But that ’ s with tarot cards , so I ’ m not even sure if that counts .)
V - I HEARD SOME OF THE DEVELOPMENT FOR THIS SHOW WAS OVER ZOOM ?
Christopher : Yes . The pandemic forced everyone to explore new ways to work and of course Zoom was one of them that has lasted . Jeff McBride was one of three collaborators we worked with over Zoom . He was brilliant in helping us add magic throughout and improve what we already had . Jeff was also a fountain of advice with all things stage craft . We also had all-Zoom work with our composer and lyricist Micah Young working out of New York City . And our clowning and physical theatre director Ira Seidenstein based in Brisbane . We were not completely sure how productive Zoom developments would be . But we thought if we know the perfect people for the project yet can ’ t afford to fly them in , why not try to work with them long-distance over a longer time ? Of course there were moments where we thought ‘ this would be so much easier if we were in the same room ’. But most of the time that wasn ’ t even a consideration . The benefit of video records was also incredibly useful . Over three years of making a 65-minute show , you ' re bound to need to check what you did before . And we did this many , many times !
30 JUNE | 2024