Issue 4 | 31st May 2025
The time someone tried to commit murder after a magic trick & how do you work in brand new material?
JOSH: We’ve published lots of magic books, but the most peculiar, heartening title was written by…we can’t really say. It’s attributed to “Anonymous,” and it’s called Diary of a Prison Magician. It’s by a man passionate about magic, writing about how magic quite literally turned his life around. He is currently serving a life sentence in a federal prison. I first met this man through mail, when he wrote to me after coming across one of the magic books I wrote for the public. We struck up a correspondence, and I began teaching him sleights and routines through the mail, letter by letter. Over the years we worked together on a holiday show he would do for inmates and the prison staff. He eventually started to develop his own material. I encouraged this magician to write about his unusual circumstances. After all, most of us never have the challenge of performing for active gang members. When he performs, guards often threaten him with full searches and shakedowns if he doesn’t tip how he does his magic. He has even been threatened with death by other inmates if he doesn’t explain his tricks. Somehow, he has not only survived, but thrived, on the inside of one of the most violent prison environments in the country. The book is a fascinating account of one man’s harrowing journey in prison, and there’s no other magic book like it. It’s priced extremely affordably. You can check out more here.
How do you work in brand new material? ANDI: I’ve just finished a week performing in the Parlour at The Magic Castle. It was a genuinely fun and energising experience. I revisited material I’ve performed before, but this time my focus was very specific: I wanted to sharpen the comedy and deepen the audience interaction. JOSH: So how did you go about doing that? ANDI: I started by narrowing in on exactly what I wanted to work on. By using material I already knew well, I was free to concentrate on refining the tone and rhythm of the performance. I isolated pockets within the routines where I thought I could inject more humour or moments of genuine connection. I also deliberately structured the show to invite interaction, adding a five-minute stand-up segment near the top to signal to the audience that playfulness was welcome, and that their involvement could elevate the show. JOSH: And how did you develop those interactive moments? ANDI: I designed sections of the act where there was room for me to react and improvise. Sometimes that meant inserting literal pauses—blank spaces that I could either explore or skip over, depending on the energy in the room. One routine, my story deck piece, twists and turns in ways that demand spontaneous responses. It’s thrilling because in those moments, everything rides on my ability to think quickly and to say something funny to keep the routine moving in a pacy way. Before each show, I reminded myself to go beyond the obvious joke. Anyone can come up with a quick line, but I was working to build layered moments—callbacks, running gags, or subtle reinforcements of earlier beats. One night, for instance, a spectator misread part of a Confabulation prediction. He read the wrong line and said “Mexico” instead of “Ten.” I made a quick joke, but held back from fully using the moment. Later in the story deck routine, I produced a Ten and casually said, “Or, as it’s commonly known… Mexico!” That callback got a much bigger laugh, but it only worked because I laid the groundwork and trusted the audience to remember the earlier slip. It reminded me of something from Piff’s book—how he builds quiet moments into his show to give himself time to write jokes on the fly. You can only do that kind of thing if you really know your material so that you can quickly think about where the jokes are best inserted. JOSH: And how did you know when these new changes were working? ANDI: I recorded as many shows as possible and took detailed notes between performances. If an improvised moment felt promising, I’d jot it down and try to build on it the next show. I always threw myself in the deep end to help stretch my improvisational muscles. I also leaned heavily on friends—Asi Wind, John Lovick, Carisa Hendrix, David Kaplan, Jamy Ian Swiss, Gus Garcia, Mike Caveney—all of whom came to the show. After each performance, I shamelessly asked for feedback, and in some cases, kept asking until they finally gave in! But I tried something new this time: instead of just asking for notes, I asked some of them to stand on stage and walk me through their thoughts physically. That was a game-changer. After one show, Asi gave me five ideas as we moved through the beats of my act together, and I was able to implement all of them the very next show. It felt like real-time collaboration, and it pushed the material forward fast. Plus, I got to see how someone like Asi might handle the things that I felt weren’t hitting as well as they could. Meanwhile, you had a very different month, diving into a lot of new material. What was that like? JOSH: Yes! I have had the most inspiring month at the Liberty Magic Theater in Pittsburgh. It’s a magic-specific venue, and I debuted 75 brand new minutes of magic. I would normally introduce new material slowly, slipping it into setlists that are more refined. But this show has a theme, and I had to debut basically everything at once. ANDI: Tell us about the theme. JOSH: It’s called Making Magic, and it’s a show about the making of a magic show. So I convey how I developed the material as I perform the magic itself. The format has been a blast, and I even touch on how I work in new material in this show. ANDI: And how is that? JOSH: The actual theme of one of the tricks is feedback. I ask to borrow a dollar bill and give someone in the audience a pad of paper. I ask them to “judge” eight quick tricks that I perform with the borrowed dollar, judging each one on a scale of 0-9. In the end, the numbers they rate each trick end up matching the serial number on the borrowed bill. It’s a cool way to showcase visual magic with a dollar bill, and bring it all to a surprise conclusion. But it’s also a forum to talk about how material is developed with the very audience I’m performing for. ANDI: Last thing. You’re pretty ruthless with your new material. Talk about that. JOSH: Yep. I came to Pittsburgh with ten pieces. The show is down to seven. I cut three pieces from the show over the last twenty performances. A couple just weren’t what I expected them to be. One showed real promise, but I wasn’t seeing much growth in how the trick was evolving, and the reactions it was receiving. So I cut it. And the show felt much better after I trimmed the fat. *** These Vanishing Inc. Edition emails are our chance to chat directly with you about current magic events and important topics in our industry. Got something you want to ask us? Reply to this email and we’ll address it…
Andi Gladwin & Joshua Jay
Vanishing Inc. Cofounders
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