Magician Nate Staniforth doesn’t put on the typical magic act.
Forget about blaring rock music, flashy costumes and fancy pyrotechnics. The host of Discovery Channel’s Breaking Magic prefers his shows to be less about what’s happening on stage and more about what’s happening in the audience.
“Magic has to happen in the mind of the audience or it doesn’t happen,” said Staniforth, who is about to wrap up a series of shows in Denver and Fort Collins as part of his Real Magic tour.
Interview Highlights With Nate Staniforth
On The Stereotypes Of Being A Magician
“The problem with magic is that if you hear there’s a magic show coming to town, you think of laser beams and smoke machines and tight leather pants and G.O.B. from Arrested Development. Everyone has this image of a magic show.”
On Why Magic Isn’t Necessarily Entertainment
“It is a curious thing to require of magicians, you know. Poets aren’t entertainers and I don’t even think musicians are entertainers or painters are entertainers. You can either ask someone to give you a good time or you can ask them to give you something real and genuine but those aren’t necessarily the same thing. I’m a terrible entertainer. But when it comes to using magic to give people an experience, I know how to do that.”
On Letting People Peek Behind The Curtain On Breaking Magic - Sort Of
“So the goal was to be the Mythbusters of magic. To show the home viewer all of the sort of work that goes into creating these pieces of magic. So, it took a lot of work, like how do you let them into the process without giving away any of the secrets but what we found is that, audiences are smart. They know that as a magician, I don’t have any magic powers. And so, when they get to some of the process that goes into the creation of this performance, and then see the result at the end, I think that’s an interesting experience.”