French Photos

I'm slowly beginning to catch up on my sleep after spending most of last week with Vincent Hedan, the charming and wonderful French magician, with the equally charming and wonderful accent. While he was in town, he presented his show, The Wish, in English for the first time, did two special events for The Sid Lorraine Hat & Rabbit Club and we even snuck him out to perform at a private event. Enjoy the photos, while I get back to plotting and scheming - there's lots of great magic coming up very soon.

I need to thank Hat & Rabbit Club and Ben Train for helping to organize everything and thank Michael Weber and Dr. Sammy Jakubowicz for their mischievous tweets.

Photos by Johan Duker, Josh Sexmith, Vincent Hedan & James Alan, not all at the same time.

The Naked News

James Alan Naked News

Somewhere, somehow, there is someone who thinks that my normal performances aren't strange enough. And that person has access to a video camera. My interview/performance The Naked News was posted in a segment called "The Schmooze".

See what others are saying about the clip:

Spencer Malone

In order to view the clip, you need to be a subscriber to The Naked News. Or you can skip all that and just click here.

Magic@theCage Continues

I went back and checked and last night marked our twentieth show at The Cage 292 in The Crimson Lounge. It's been a wonderful time and we have no plans of stopping any time soon. But I went back and looked through the photos since we started the show and picked out my favourites. Join us every Tuesday and Sunday night for more great Magic@theCage....

CagePosterweb

A Series of Unfortunate Effects

A few years ago, I found out about a strange magic project; a hybrid between a magic instructional video and normal human movie. (Both magic instructional videos and normal human movies have a rich history, but so far as we've been able to figure, the twain have not previously met.) Finally, the project has been shot, edited, package and the producers are having a public screening at the end of this month.

A Series of Unfortunate Effects Tuesday, April 29, 2014 @ 7:00 PM The Revue Cinema (400 Roncesvalles)

Tickets are available from FiveAcademyMagic.com. You can also head there to Pre-Order the DVD.

I won't actually be at the screening, since it's the same night as Magic@theCage, but we are hosting the after party at The Cage, so I'll be there for that. The interesting part is that almost all of the cast has performed at The Cage at one point or another including Chris Mayhew, Ben Train, Chris Westfall, Jeff Hinchliffe and Canadian Magician of the Year Bill Abbott. We'll see how many of them we can talk into performing, possibly while drunk.

It's also the night before Vincent Hedan's show, The Wish, so make sure you have your tickets for that as well.

Television and Duct Tape

I was on Rogers Daytime Toronto in March talking about Magic@theCage. I performed what is probably my favourite trick these days.[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FF10fXlgmGg?rel=0]

Magic@the Cage is still running every Tuesday & Sunday night at 7:00 PM. Information and tickets are available at www.abracadabaret.com

Moving On

Back in 2009, I took over the management of Abracadabaret (then Friday Night Magic) from its founders, James Biss & Dave Curran (as I've written previously). Since then, I've had the pleasure of working with a host of talented performers and genuinely splendid people from Toronto and abroad. At the end of April, I will be stepping down as the director, producer, coordinator and general boss person at Abracadabaret to explore some other projects. After five years, I am feeling the need to try something different. As explanations go, I realize that's not very satisfying. Much like the client that sounded like they wanted to book you and then decides they've "decided to go a different direction" which is code for anything from "you're too expensive" to "we've decided to dissolve the company and donate the proceeds to Rob Ford's re-election campaign."

However, the show will go on. A well-respected magician, psychic, hypnotist, children's entertainer and author, Mark Lewis, has agreed to take over. There will still be Magic@theCage twice a week, under Mr. Lewis' astute direction.

with Mark Lewis years ago at Friday Night Magic.

While I'm sure there will be changes, they can only be for the better. Mark is an extremely knowledgeable magician who has been at it for over half a century and cares deeply for magic as an art form. We're delighted that he is able to bring his decades of experience to this and other upcoming projects.

I'm not going far. I will still be performing (booking information is over at www.JamesAlan.ca). But as far as our public events go, you can get in touch with Mark directly.

See Mark Lewis performing as part of Wendy's Canada's #ExpectToBeAmazed ad campaign in 2013:

Pay no attention to the fact that this was posted on April 1.