KU to Present Magician Bill Blagg as part of Family Series March 2

By Susan L. Peña

KUTZTOWN, Pa. – Bill Blagg has been entertaining people of all ages for more than two decades across the country. He will make his first appearance at Kutztown University’s Schaeffer Auditorium at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 2, as part of the KU Presents Family Series.

Tickets for Bill Blagg “Family Magic” are $20 for all ages and can be purchased at the KU Presents website or by calling the KU Presents Box Office 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday, at 610-683-4092.  Established to be the center of cultural life at Kutztown University, KU Presents serves the campus and community by bringing world-class live arts that entertain, educate and enrich.

Blagg, who is known for his mind-boggling illusions as well as his sense of humor, said he developed this show, “Family Magic,” when, as a father of two children, ages 2 and 3 months, he realized “there’s not many shows that are theatrical in scale and appropriate for a whole age range, and family-friendly in terms of affordability.”

The show, which lasts about 75 minutes with no intermission, will feature a full menu of illusions, mentalism, sleight-of-hand and even a dancing handkerchief – and plenty of audience participation. “I ask for volunteers throughout the show,” Blagg said. “We turn them into magicians, and they do a super-amazing trick themselves. The look on their faces when it works is one of the best parts of the show.” And along with the magic, there is plenty of comedy throughout.

Born and raised in Kenosha, Wisc., where he and his wife are raising their children, Blagg said his interest in magic started at age 7, when his grandparents gave him a magic set. “I learned to make a quarter disappear and fooled my father,” he said. “He asked how I did that!”

As he kept trying the tricks, he would share his enthusiasm in letters to his great-grandfather, who was an amateur magician himself. Then, on his tenth birthday, his great-grandfather sent him the first three volumes of Harlan Tarbell’s classic “Course in Magic,” originally published in 1952 and still used by professional magicians as their bible, along with the five subsequent volumes.

Not only did the books contain detailed how-to’s, with hand-drawn illustrations, for every imaginable type of trick, Blagg said, but “there’s also a lot of sections about what it means to perform magic and how to routine a show. It talked about the philosophy of performing magic, what makes a good performance of magic, the art of misdirection, captivating the audience, et cetera.”

“It was pivotal to me,” he said. “The books changed my life. I share that story with the audience and perform one of the tricks from the book that took me 18 years to perfect.”

From then on, Blagg was on a path toward becoming a professional magician. His parents were supportive even though no one else in the family had pursued entertainment as a career.

He started out doing magic tricks as “Mr. Magic” for his classmates on Friday afternoons in elementary school, using household items like paper clips and paper towel tubes, suggested by his great-grandfather.

Then, his father found Magic Inc., a Chicago magic shop founded by magician/ventriloquist Jay Marshall (who performed many times on the “Ed Sullivan Show” with his white-glove puppet Lefty). “Dad offered me a birthday party there and $25 to spend on magic tricks,” Blagg said. Later, he also took private lessons in magic with the late Bob A. Brown, a magician, hypnotist and mentalist who worked at Magic Inc. and who guided him in creating his first shows.

At age 14, he was hired by the local park system to perform a show for its day camp – his first paid gig – for $20, $5 of which he paid his sister to be his assistant. This led to school assemblies and birthday parties, and, when he was 19, he performed his first public show – a Valentines Day event that attracted 500 people.

Blagg earned a degree in business from Carthage College in Kenosha while still working on his magic career. At 20, he performed his first professional, ticketed show, “Beyond Imagination,” with the help of his father, who designed and built some illusions, and his mother, a real estate agent, who acted as his ticket agent and helped with the business end. “My Dad is my secret weapon,” he said. “He still improves on some of the professionally made illusions for my show.”

All of Blagg’s relentless work paid off, and now he has four shows on the road, performing at arts centers in large cities and in college and university theaters. Two of the shows, “The Science of Magic” and “Magic and Motion” are designed for school-age children who are bussed to the events; both of these come with study guides. The first is about how magic uses science, and the second focuses on Isaac Newton’s three laws of motion and how magic seems to defy those. These are performed on weekdays.

He schedules “Family Magic” on Saturday and Sunday for matinees, and his full-scale spectacle, “The Magic of Bill Blagg,” on select weekends.

Blagg said he is excited to come to Kutztown as part of his current tour. “It’s a clean, fun, feel-good show. It’s a unique opportunity to see live magic as a family. And lots of couples come, even without kids, from dating teens to grandparents.”