Teaching, Lecturing, and Making a Show with Joshua Jay

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We’re really excited to have the co-founder of Vanishing Inc Magic Joshua Jay on the podcast. Josh and Andi Gladwin founded the company on the belief that there was a real dearth of high-quality magic on the market.

Josh was criticized when he first began selling difficult, high-quality tricks. The critics suggested Vanishing was giving away too much. But Josh says that giving a newbie a really impressive trick right away will ensure that they are hooked for life. But the company is not based on profit at any cost. Josh says they have pulled innumerable products either because there was a missing credit or because the products were not up to snuff.

Josh says a magical act is made up of dozens of different choices. How you present a trick is as important as the trick itself. The same goes for magical lectures. Josh has seen many, many bad lectures. But the golden rule is to nail the performance and to talk as little as possible. Josh will perform as many as twelve pieces per lecture. Speed is best. Sitting through a four hour lecture with only three tricks is a terrible waste of time.

Eight years ago Josh produced a show called “Unreal”. It was an autobiographical show that was deeply personal. Since that time he has dreamed about what else he would do in a one man show. Since then his views on magic have evolved considerably. Six Impossible Things is the result of that process.

What do you like about modern magic? What do you hate?

Josh likes how magic has returned to the stage. There are more stage performances than ever before.

He doesn’t like how social media is incorporating bad practices into magic. Using camera tricks is not magic.

What do you want to ask our audience?

If a group moved up to you right now what trick would you perform for them?

What do you want to tell our audience?

You have to have a serious passion for magic.

Who should we have on the podcast?

Andi Gladwin

What was your favourite part of the episode?

Tyler liked hearing about the importance of really loving magic.

Jonah liked hearing about how Josh has his fingers in a number of different aspects of magic.

Josh appreciated hearing the compliments about his new show.

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