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ozarks entertainment Published Monday, June 13, 2005
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Copperfield appearing in Branson
Lobeline Communications
David Copperfield believes if he does his job well, people won't walk
away from his shows saying "Well, that was a good trick."
Lobeline Communications
Want to go?
David Copperfield performs 8:30 p.m. today and June 20; and 5:30 and
8:30 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday and June 21-26 at Andy Williams' Moon River
Theatre, 2500 W. Missouri 76. Cost: $34.89-$59.41. Call: 334-4500.
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By Tresa McBee
News-Leader
He has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. His likeness is in
London's Madame Tussaud's. He was knighted by the French government.
He's vanished an airplane, levitated across the Grand Canyon and
escaped from Alcatraz.
And for two weeks, he'll be in your back yard. Live.
Beginning today, master illusionist David Copperfield performs for two
weeks at Branson's Andy Williams Moon River Theatre.
A native of Metuchen, N.J., Copperfield (born David Kotkin) is one of
the world's highest-paid performers. The 48-year-old is officially a
resident of Nevada but performs all over the globe.
Having just returned from a three-day press junket in Berlin,
Copperfield talked to the News-Leader on his cell phone in New York
City.
Q. Did magic come easily to you?
A. Yeah, it's just one of those things I had a knack for when I was a
kid. ... I started inventing it when I was very, very young. I was
about 8 years old. ... So that was really how I started, really more
as inventor than anything else. I was a little scientist. ... When I
was 12 years old, I got published in the Encyclopedia of Magic, so you
can imagine as a 12-year-old kid...
Q. How'd that happen?
A. Well, it was one of those things. I was bad at everything but good
at that. ... Everybody can sing, everybody can do magic to a certain
degree, everybody can dance, but ... sometimes you need to have a
certain talent for each of those things.
Q. What keeps you performing?
A. Oh, just the faces of the audience. ... I just love ... taking you
onto a journey, break(ing) new territory and finding a new way of
performing it.
Q. Do you prefer large venues or smaller venues, or does it matter?
A. When I play in Las Vegas, we do a 1,000-seat theater, which is very
small for me. When I'm playing in Europe, we're playing 20,000-seat
arenas, so it really depends. ... I really like both. ... When you're
in an arena, it's more like a rock concert. When you're in a theater,
it's more like Broadway. ... In Branson, I guess it'll be more
Broadway.
Q. You perform all over the country. Do you have a favorite place?
A. You know, I love every place I'm at. I try to find the fun. ...
Playing Japan — you know, to get a Japanese audience to go crazy
and ... jump out of their seats is kind of my challenge, because
normally they're very respectful and quiet.
In Germany, they love just about everything I do. In America, you
know, we're Americans. We all understand each other. ... The challenge
is (to) ... try and make the most out of it.
Q. How has your performance evolved? Has your focus changed?
A. Totally. In the very beginning, I was very much into movie and
Broadway, and my whole focus was making magic as important as the
cinema and Broadway shows. I told a lot of stories and did a lot of
dancing, a lot of movement and it was all about that. ... So it was
very, very theatrical in nature.
And then I went into very dangerous things. ... I went over Niagara
Falls, and I escaped from an imploding building, and all these kind of
very dangerous things, which I do from time to time still. Then I went
through a period where I did very large-scale things — the Statue of
Liberty disappeared, (I) walked through the Great Wall of China. ...
It had to be a monument involved and I was happy.
And lately, you know, times have changed and it became more about
reality ... very urban. People want things that are absolutely
real. ...
So my style has really allowed me to ... tell stories about my life
through my magic. ... Not in a very showy way. ... I dress in jeans
and a T-shirt and I walk on stage, and the audience really sees
enormous contrast between ... magic that's spectacular and big, but me
just being like a normal person.
Q. Why Branson?
A. I have a lot of friends who have performed there. I've heard nice
things about it. ... I want to give it a try.
Q. Have you been here yet?
A. Never. I'll be arriving two hours before my first performance.
Q. Is that normal for you?
A. No, but I've got a good team, and we're used to doing this routine
of setting up the show and testing everything. You know, I'll do my
final checks and brush my teeth, and I'll do the show at 8 o'clock
that night.
Q. What can audiences expect?
A. This is about making people's dreams come true. ... Nobody dreams
about pulling a rabbit out of a hat, nobody dreams about making the
Statue of Liberty disappear unless they're me.
People dream about being reunited with people they haven't seen in a
while, so I'll magically reunite people on stage they haven't seen in
a while. It's an amazing emotional response. Not just somebody
appearing out of nowhere, not just a spectacular piece of magic.
People dream about having the perfect car, and I'll make a car appear
for somebody in the audience. People dream about people traveling
around the world, so I have a team in Hawaii and I vanish people from
the theater and make them appear in Hawaii.
So the main theme and thrust of the show is actually making people's
real dreams, real thoughts come true on stage.
Q. How many days, weeks do you spend on the road?
A. I do about 550 shows a year. ... (When I'm touring) I do two to
three shows a day normally, and I love it.
Q. Is there something that's constantly written about you that you
can't stand or that's completely inaccurate?
A. I don't really hate anything. People call what I do sometimes
tricks. And I don't mind that, I don't hate that. ... But if I'm doing
my job really well, they won't really walk out of the theater saying,
well, that was a good trick.
They'll walk out of the theater saying, you know, that was a really
moving experience, or that was an amazing piece of magic that
happened. I'm really not trying to trick anybody, I'm not trying to
fool you. I'm trying to really involve you in a story or an experience
or a moment.
Q. What is Project Magic?
A. Magic is taught to patients to help them regain their dexterity and
coordination by learning sleight of hand, in addition to boosting the
patient's self-esteem by giving them a skill that an able-bodied
person doesn't even have. And it's been going on for about 20 years
now in about a thousand hospitals in 30 countries around the world, so
it's pretty cool.
Q. How did you get the idea to start that?
A. Another magician was writing me. He never told me he was disabled,
and finally I found out he was disabled and really rose above that
because he was able to have a skill that an able-bodied person didn't
have. ... So I took that thing which is very motivating and I combined
it with some real therapy, so by learning magic people are ...
motivated to learn those skills and move into mathematics and memory
and sequencing and planning — all the things you have to learn in
rehabilitation.
Q. Do you ever think about retiring?
A. I don't think so. I feel like I'm 26 and I act 16, and I'm having
too much fun.
A. Where do you get your ideas?
Q. People. Mostly from people. I talk to people and (say), 'What do
you dream about?' and that becomes my material.
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Director of Nursing Long Term Care 60-bed Skilled Nursing Home
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Exp paint and bodyperson, Trailiner Corp., Apply in person
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