900: Dan Sperry - The Anti-Conjuror

With this episode we celebrate the 900th episode of The Magic Word Podcast. Every 50 episodes we like to present a special guest who is well known throughout our worldwide magic community. And who better for this episode than Dan Sperry. He was a regular member of The Illusionists who toured the major stages of the world from Sydney, Australia, to Broadway in New York City. He has headlined in nightclubs, Las Vegas casinos, and performing arts theaters. For many years he has appeared on Masters of Illusion television show as well as many other TV shows. Now residing in Florida, he continues to travel the globe, but when at home, he enjoys (believe it or not) performing for children’s birthday parties.

In this week’s episode, Dan shares his story of how he developed his act and his character. He tells us about his early journey as he worked with doves and learned from some of the true masters like Joseph Gabriel that developed into a residency at a casino in Las Vegas. He toured Canada with Murray Hatfield as he honed his dove act and began to settle into his Shock Illusionist persona. He also talks about developing his talking act that led to work with the Illusionists and television appearances.

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676: Ed Alonzo - In The Library

While I was in Los Angeles to work on “Masters of Illusion” TV series, Ed Alonzo found time to sit in the library of the Magic Castle to chat about his career. As a former member of the Long Beach Mystics and the Magic Castle Junior group, Ed launched successful careers as both a magician and an actor having major roles in many television series including “Saved By The Bell.” He also went on to work with Britney Spears on her worldwide concert tour where he interacted with her on stage in his character as a magician.

In this week’s episode, Ed covers a lot of territory in a short hour podcast. He talks extensively about the Magic Castle and his love and dedication to the clubhouse. He also talks about his time as a youth as he was trying to “find his character” when he was a member of the Long Beach Mystics and the Magic Castle Juniors. He tells how he transitioned into acting but never lost his love for performing magic, which he still does to this day having just completed the taping of Season Nine of “Masters of Illusion.” By the way, he talked about running for office on the Academy of Magical Arts: he won the election and is now on the Board of Directors. Congratulations, Ed.

Download this podcast in an MP3 file by Clicking Here and then right click to save the file. You can also subscribe to the RSS feed by Clicking Here. You can download or listen to the podcast through Stitcher by Clicking Here or through FeedPress by Clicking Here or through Tunein.com by Clicking Here or through iHeart Radio by Clicking Here..If you have a Spotify account, then you can also hear us through that app, too. You can also listen through your Amazon Alexa and Google Home devices. Remember, you can download it through the iTunes store, too. See the preview page by Clicking Here

Towards the end of the episode, Ed talks about being on “The American Life” podcast with Ira Glass and David Kestenbaum as they talked about “The Lady Vanishes” or, David Copperfield’s vanish of the Statue of Liberty. Ed was part of the team that worked with David on this illusion and this episode goes into detail about the effect. The podcast website for this episode is HERE. “The Lady Vanishes” is the second part of this episode entitled “The Magic Show” and Ed Alonzo’s part comes very near the end at around time stamp 00:53:00.

368: Day Four IBM/SAM Combined Convention 2017

FRIDAY JULY 14 SCHEDULE
8:00 AM - 5:00 PM - Registration Opens - Registration Area
8:00 AM - 9:30 AM - Order of Merlin Breakfast- Cochran
10:00 AM - 5:00 PM - Dealers Open - Exhibit Hall
9:30 AM - NOON - Close-Up Contest - Grand Ballroom
1:00 PM - 2:30 PM - Max Maven Lecture - Grand Ballroom
3:00 PM - 4:45 PM - Juliana Chen Lecture - Grand Ballroom
5:00 PM - 7:30 PM - Grand Banquet - Archibald-Cochran, Rivue Tower
8:00 PM - 9:30 PM - Internat’l Magic Competition - Whitney Hall (Ticketed Event)
10:00 PM - 10:45 PM - Murray Hatfield Lecture - Grand Ballroom
11:00 PM - 11:45 PM - Luis Carreon Lecture - Grand Ballroom
11:00 PM - Midnight - Invisible Lodge - Collins

Time stamps for this podcast:

00:00:18 - Steven Bargatze and Lance Burton talk about going to high school together in Louisville, Tennessee

00:08:56 - Mac King, co-honoree at this convention, chats about his record breaking run at Harrah's Casino in Las Vegas plus what might be coming up next for him.

00:15:01 - George Schindler, Dean of the S.A.M. Parent Assembly #1 talks about his predecessors whom he knew.

00:21:30 - Eliot Cohen represents the "Every Man" who is the typical convention registrant. We get a perspective from his point of view on the convention and why he attends magic conventions. Also included with this chat with Eliot is his friend, John McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

00:35:13 - Murray Hatfield will close the Saturday night show with his illusion show he brought down from Canada. He will also be a lecturer after the Friday night show.

00:47:41 - Ted and Marion Outerbridge, Canadian Illusionists, closed last night's show (Thursday night) after having rebuilt some of their illusions which were left in China awaiting their return in August.