Happy Second Birthday Houdini!

I have to take a brief break from the Tribute to Cesareo Pelaez, to recognize the second birthday of Erich Weiss. Yep, good ole Houdini had two birthdays, March 24th and April 6th. His real birthday was March 24th, but he always celebrated April 6th as his birthday.

So HAPPY BIRTHDAY AGAIN 

HOUDINI

LGD-Marketing From The Golden Age of Magic

Back in the Golden Age of Magic, the most popular form of advertising a show was to use colorful lithographs. Magicians used thousands of these full color posters and would have the town 'papered' or covered with their posters so that everyone knew they were coming or that their show was in town. This was before the advent of radio or TV so it was best way to promote a show.

Le Grand David and his own Spectacular Magic Company have borrowed a page from the book of the old time magicians and adapted a number of their marketing and advertising techniques. This group has produced more unique posters than probably any other magician or magic act in history. They don't paper the town, but they do prominently display their posters in the lobby and in the windows of the theatre. The posters are also pictured in vivid color in their programs.

Another interesting technique that Cesareo and company borrowed from past shows is to create their own newspaper. This paper is produced by them, they sell the advertising, have them printed up and then deliver the papers free of charge to businesses throughout the Boston area. There is a new paper every week. It serves a two fold purpose. It alerts the locals as to what movies are playing at their theatre and it also lets them know about this one of a kind magic show presented on various Sundays throughout the year.

Getting back to the posters for a moment, Kellar, Thurston, Houdini and others used full color lithograph posters to promote their appearances. The images on those posters needed to be striking and breathtaking in order to encourage people to attend their performances. Look at the two posters I have put on this blog. I chose them specifically because not only do they feature a prominent member of the company, in this case Cesareo as Marco the Magi, they also include painted images of moments from the show. Notice, not a detail is left out. If the backdrop is elaborate and colorful, they've included that very image in the painting. I think my favorite backdrop of theirs is the beautiful peacock feather backdrop. You can see a portion of it on the poster at the top of the page, it's in the small square with Cesareo presenting his 'Floating Table' illusion.

Some of the early posters for the company were line drawings. Over time they became more and more elaborate. In my personal collection, I own a poster from the early days which is black and gold. I think this was a silk screened image and it's gorgeous. I purchased it during my very first visit to the show as a kid.

In the 1983, the company published a small book called "The Making of a Magic Poster". I own a copy of it, but I don't have it handy to reference. I do know that many of the poster designs were the idea of Cesareo and then he would have members do the artwork. I'm fairly certain that the majority of full color posters were the creation of Cesareo and Rick Heath. Rick has been with the company since the early days and he is a fantastic artist in my opinion. He also plays the part of Albert Ping-Pong, one of the august clowns in the show. If you've seen the show you might recall the clown with the squeeker voice, well that is Albert Ping Pong. He is also the clown who makes the very tall newspaper tree just prior to David performing the Dancing Handkerchief.

If I had to guess, I'd say that there are over 100 posters created by the company. How many of them were turned into printed posters I don't know. But you can see many of the originals on display in the lobby of the Cabot Theatre and in the Gallery of the Larcom Theatre.

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LGD-The Magic of Spectacle Pt2

I wanted to share with you a couple of photos that show the kind of thought and detail that went into the decorating of the props used in the show. Please keep in mind, that some of the smaller props they used in the show were purchased, other props were built from scratch. But no matter which way they got the props, they all went through the Cesareo decorating process.

The illusion pictured above is HUGE. I think it stands 5ft tall to give you an idea of scale. I was never fortunate enough to see it used in the show, so I am not even certain what it is. I have a feeling it's some sort of tip over trunk illusion. But regardless of what the prop does, it's the way the prop is decorated that I want to point out. You might think they all of their props are red and black with painted dragons, WRONG you are. This piece above is simply a work of art. The design on the front is incredible. The same design is repeated on the sides and the back. IF you look at the base of the prop, you can clearly see a similar design repeated. Let's face it, they could have easily just painted the base a solid color, but they did not go that route. The design is also repeated on the curved lid, which I honestly didn't even notice myself until just now. And then there is the flowered decoration on part of the lid. It's just another detail that takes this prop from ordinary to extraordinary!

The next prop is a smaller piece, a Die Box. 90% of the detailed paint work on this prop is going to be lost on the audience, but did that matter? No. Look closely at this prop and you can see the care and patience that had to go into painting it. BTW, these are not decals you're looking at. The detailed work on this prop was all hand painted. It's breathtaking if you think about it.

This final piece is a very large illusion known as 'Noah's Ark' or sometimes just as 'The Ark'. It's an illusion that has fallen out of favor. It was popular in the Vaudeville days and I know that Harry Blackstone Sr. presented a version of it as did many other performers. The effect was that the front and back doors of the prop were opened to show it empty, and then they were closed. At this point the magician would reach through the openings in the front of the box and pull out livestock, chickens, ducks and other such animals. Eventually, after numerous livestock had been produced, the doors were again opened and a female was seen reclining inside the box! Most of these things were decorated to look like Noah's Ark, so they had a wood grain finish or natural finish if you will.  Wood grain would not fit within the scheme of all the other props in the LeGrand David Show, so this prop got the special 1-2-3 Cesareo signature style applied to it. Keep in mind, the kind of design that is on this illusion isn't going to be listed among a set of workshop plans. Cesareo and the members of the company would have had to come up with the design first, draw it on there and then hand paint it! And this prop has DRAGONS! Look at the top and you'll see two ornate dragons that stretch from one side to the other meeting in the middle of the box. As I said before, not so much a paint job as it is a work of art! But it was this kind of work that was the signature of the members of this show. It was this kind of care that went into everything they did. When you step back and really examine the amount of effort that went into each and every prop,  you begin to understand that this was not just a magic show but it was a labor of love for everyone involved.

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