How do you keep a show fresh and dynamic? Where does one draw inspiration? How do you set yourself apart from the pack? Steve Cohen has done that for over two decades with his intimate show, Chamber Magic, in New York City. He sits down with Genii to talk about all that, and so much more.
Ginger ale, please. Do you know the magician Owen Clark? In the 1920s, he had a broken and restored plate trick. [Steve reaches into a bag and takes out a broken plate and a missing piece.] I’ll tell you the whole trick in a second, but for the last piece, you take this broken shard, rub it like that, and the last piece gets restored. And then you can hand out the plate! Isn’t that wonderful? Today, nobody is doing that. The full trick is, you show a plate, wrap it in a sheet of newspaper, hand someone a hammer, and then they smash it. The audience hears all the pieces rattling around inside. You open up the newspaper, and there’s all these broken pieces of plate. And then you take each piece and vanish them one by one, and they reappear piece by piece, restored inside of a shadow box….