Matthew Laslo’s New Magic Show for the Holidays

 –by Margie Doyle —

Matthew Laslo

Matthew Laslo’s introduces “Magic Now,” a new magic show for the holidays on Dec. 26th & 27th at 7:30pm at Sea View Theatre.

Matthew, 15, is a local, award-winning magician who performs both close-up “sleight-of-hand” tricks and grand “illusions,” such as sawing someone in half. This new show is a pilot, with 17 pieces in the show, revised from last summer focusing on making the standards more entertaining, working on scripting, with more jokes, stories and patter to add to the illusion

“Magic happens all around us and it’s happening now,” Laslo said, explaining how the new name of his show came to be.

“I love performing and I need an audience to grow as an artist, and there’s no audience more supportive than my home town,” says Matthew. “This is the first time “Magic Now” is getting on its feet and I am excited to share it with the island first,” said Matthew. The show promises to be highly entertaining with new takes on some of his favorites and amazing new illusions. Joining him are his lovely and talented assistants, Maria Bullock and Madison West and “of course,” Matthew says, “there are always some surprises.”

He recalls a couple of his shows off-island when the audience caught him a bit by surprise and called on his improvisational skills. The first occurrence was at SeaMar Community Health Center, a benefit performance for families in the Marysville area. The show was scheduled for about 90 minutes. But it wasn’t until he arrived that Matthew learned the audience was entirely Spanish-speaking, and so his stage dialogue needed to be translated. A translator was found, but with everything said twice, in English and in Spanish, the show ran over its allotted time.

Inviting the audience to participate is a time-honored part of every show he does; and Matthew says, “You ever know who you’re going to get. It’s always someone  different, so there’s always the element of improvisation.”  The second occasion where the audience surprised Matthew was almost a reverse experience from the first, at  NOVA alternative school in Seattle. There, the audience was so eager to be part of the act that they nearly rushed the stage.

“Usually you have to convince people to be sawed in half, but they were jumping at the chance to be sawed in half,” Matthew said.

In performance, he loves the strong audience interaction, especially the people who “enjoy the magic that life doesn’t have to be the way you expect it to be. They just enjoy the entertainment of it. Others won’t be satisfied until they know how an illusion worked. My goal for the show is not so much ‘Hah! I fooled you!’ but more ‘Watch and enjoy an entertaining story.’

“The challenge of this new show is to refine it, to make the stuff my own,” Matthew says. He works full-time constantly on his performance, memorizing scripts when not actively rehearsing or doing his schoolwork. As a homeschool student working toward his high school diploma, Matthew incorporates much of his magic profession in his schoolwork, such as learning budgeting for shows, and making a customized prop instead of buying it.

He’s also created his own Magic Kit containing10 different tricks from beginning to advanced proficiency. The kits, which sell for $20, are only available at the show, and are in limited quantity. Matthew gave one of the kits to budding magician Leo Miller, who finds Matthew’s devotion to his tradecraft “inspiring.”

Matthew’s approach to performance excellence is a gradual, journeyman study, and he can often be found rehearsing at the Sea View Theatre. He says, “I get a break when I’m sleeping,” but he adds, “I’m living my dream.”

He expects to continue rehearsing the Magic Now show for performances in February on Whidbey Island  and at Seattle Children’s Theatre in late spring, and around the Pacific NW next summer.

Tickets to the Dec. 26-27 performances are a family friendly $10 and are  available at Darvills’ Bookstore, Smith & Speed in Eastsound. The shows routinely sell out in advance.