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Have you ever been asked to theme a show for a specific holiday or event? It can be a stressful task if you don’t approach it properly. Here are 4 super easy ways to theme your next family or kids show.
Props
When I get asked to theme a show the first thing I always do is take a look at what I already have and see how it can be applied to the particular theme. I’d rather use what I have then spend extra cash buying props that I may only use once! Spending that extra cash can eat into your profit margins fast.
Think about the way you can easily change the appearance of a prop to make it fit the particular theme you are shooting for. If needed you can paint a prop to match a certain color, you can use certain color silks than you would normally use and so forth. Here are some quickie ideas.
Crystal Silk Tube– For this effect you can easily change out the silks that come with it and use your own silks. You can match colors to fit your countries flag or match the colors for a particular holiday or season. Message silks also come in handy.
Square Circle – This comes in handy along with any sort of other production utility device. You can easily produce small objects or other things necessary to fit the theme. Lets just say you are doing a Birthday show. You could easily make a small gift appear for the child. Let your creative side take over!
Drawer Boxes – Big or small you can use this device to easily produce or vanish objects. The box can be designed to look like various objects with a bit of creativity. If you have a large drawer box it could be made to look like a mailbox, a car/truck of some sort, a shoebox etc.
You should treat a plain drawer box like this as a blank canvas. There are dozens of things you could do with this to fit within your show.
Patter
Scripting your patter to fit within a theme can be one of the best ways to make your show seem to flow and fit together. Doing this can take a good amount of time but you can streamline things in just a few easy steps.
1. Write down any ideas you have for the show. Even if you think they are far fetched, write them down.
2. Write opening and closing patter to make the show seem complete.
3. Pick 3 main routines or tricks in your show and focus on them.
It isn’t necessary to have themed patter for every single routine in your show. Three solid routines are good enough and will allow you to get your point across.
Try searching online or look for books containing jokes, riddles and poems. Often books will categorize things into a particular subject. If you need a joke for a birthday, holiday or something else you can usually find it.
If you are more artistic you could search for a certain poem to work within your routine. Many stage magicians have some sort of smaller effect but make it seem much larger with an interesting story or poem. Here are some examples.
· Gypsy Thread
· Snowstorm
· Floating Rose / Napkin Rose
Remember the key here is to use all resources at your disposal. Make the most of what you have and build upon it.
Handouts
Providing a handout not only can help portray the theme of the show but it helps get your name in the hands of future clients. From simple birthday parties to corporate functions handouts should be considered.
If you are doing a holiday party for children you could give away coloring sheets. The coloring sheets could have Rudolph or Santa Claus on them. Even better would be a caricature of you wearing a Santa hat. Coloring sheets make awesome handouts and can easily be customized to fit within a theme.
You can also give tricks away such as two-card monte. This has worked well for me in the past when the show I was doing had a casino night theme. Try and think of some simple effects that you could give away. In this instance it might cost a bit to have handouts but you should be charging more anyways to help cover that.
Fortune telling fish work great for kids and adults. You could easily provide these if doing a show for a fishing company or an event that has a mystery or mind reading theme to it.
Costuming
A real visual way to put over the theme of your show is by the clothes you are wearing. If someone booked you to perform at a Wizard of Oz party you should be dressing like a wizard.
For casino nights you could dress as a card hustler or dealer. You don’t have to go crazy either. For Christmas you could wear a Santa hat and a colored vest in either green or red. Halloween you could wear lots of orange even dress up as a real “Magician†with top hat, cape, and wand in hand. These are just some ideas to get you thinking.
Your costume is what sets you apart from others. It is one of the best ways to theme a show but I still suggest using a few of the ideas in this article to give your audience the full effect.
As you can see costuming can really make or break the theme of a show.
Closing Thoughts
Remember, everything doesn’t have to be over done. Take these main ideas and see what works for you. Thankfully most of your themed shows will revolve around holidays and special events such as Birthday Parties, Weddings etc. Every now and then you will be thrown a curve ball and asked to try and fit the theme of something odd. With the tools provided here you should have no problem tackling any obstacle.
I was asked to do a Spanish theme for a child’s birthday party. I added in a Pinata, handed out coloring sheets of a magician and a clown that had the titles in Spanish, and finally I added in some simple patter lines. Instead of counting in English for some tricks I counted in Spanish. When I had to say the name of a certain color I used the Spanish term.
Below is a list of some common props or tricks that can easily be used to help theme certain shows.
Common Tricks/Props Used A Lot In Themed Shows
· Snowstorm – What kind of show would this be good in??
· Change Bag – A nice versatile device to switch objects or make them appear and disappear.
· Rope Magic – All rope routines would work well if doing a Renaissance type show program.
· Needle Thru Arm / Head Chopper – These are very common tricks used for spook type Halloween shows.
When I performed at a haunted hayride in the fall I made myself up as a zombie character that did really weird things including some bizarre and shock magic. To fit in with the haunted hayride atmosphere I wore a torn up jacket, pants, and a white hat with a feather. I also used latex and makeup to create scars and various wounds on my face. When I worked the midway the fact that I was in a character such as this and able to perform some weird magic really added a lot to the overall feeling for the patrons. It was a blast.
