During halftime at ComedySportz, a young magician stood before rows of bleachers and asked audience members to extend their arms in front of their bodies, cross one arm over the other, and link the fingers of their own hands.
With each audience member posed more awkwardly than the next, the magician, who had linked his own fingers in the same fashion, released his hands easily, as if one hand simply melted through the other.
The audience, many still stuck with crossed arms and linked fingers, gasped at the physical impossibility of the magician’s escape, as they twisted their bodies, attempting to achieve the same effect.
That magician is Milwaukeean Ben Seidman, who just completed his junior year at the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire.
Seidman began his career as a professional magician at age 13, when he started performing at children’s birthday parties. By the time he was 16, he was performing for adults as well.
Today, Seidman performs at private and corporate events, including bar and bat mitzvah celebrations, banquets, and parties. He has developed different types of shows to appeal to adult groups and families as well as children, including a show that is a hybrid of magic and stand-up comedy.
His website, www.magicben .com, features a video of his stand-up magic routine, which is targeted to adult and young adult audiences.
Seidman also does close-up magic at events, including his recurring role behind the bar at ComedySportz. Close-up magic is performed for small groups and allows Seidman to interact with his audience. It is “doing magic on a more personal level,” he said.
He achieves the seemingly impossible, making solid matter disappear into thin air and reappear in unexpected places. Rubber bands repair themselves in his hands, and playing cards seem to rise to the top of the pile when he snaps his fingers.
Like most magicians, Seidman declined to reveal how his magic works. He said that magic lives and dies on the audience’s awe and wonder.
“As we discover more and more, there’s less wonder in our lives,” Seidman said. “I try to bring that wonder back and make people smile at the same time.”
‘This little passion’
Although his shows for children and adults are different, Seidman said in a recent interview that he can perform similar tricks for both, “but what will differ is the presentation.”
“My stand-up show is lots of magic with an overtone of stand-up comedy,” he said. “When I perform for kids, it’s still comedy, but the comedy is completely different. There’s a lot of wacky silliness.”
In August, Seidman will leave for Las Vegas, where he will complete his senior year at the University of Nevada. He will study with master magicians and learn more about doing magic as a career, while he finishes his degree in comprehensive theater.
“When magicians meet and share ideas, it’s called ‘sessioning,’” Seidman said. “I’m going to get ‘to session’ with some of the world’s best slight-of-hand artists.”
Seidman graduated from the Milwaukee Jewish Day School in 1999 and Shorewood High School in 2003. When he was six, his parents bought him a magic kit for his birthday. He quickly exhausted the kit’s repertoire of tricks, but that introduction sparked his love for the art of magic.
Later, while performing with First Stage Milwaukee as a child, Seidman met Tim Catlett, who was the production’s assistant technical director.
“When I met him, he had a deck of cards and was springing them from one hand to the other,” Seidman said. After explaining his own interest in magic, Catlett began to teach him.
“I found this little passion inside of me, and I learned everything I could,” Seidman said.
When he was 16, Seidman began working at the Theophilus Magic Shop in Milwaukee. He had to learn how to perform nearly every effect the store offered in order to demonstrate and explain products. In addition, he had access to books and manuscripts about magic, and got to talk to other magicians who frequented the shop.
Seidman said that his favorite effect to perform involves having an audience member sign his or her name on a dollar bill. The volunteer then hands the bill to Seidman.
“Much to the dismay of the audience volunteer, I then destroy the bill right in front of them and casually move on with the show,” Seidman said. “Much later in the show, the same dollar bill, with the volunteer’s signature, appears restored in an impossible location” — like another audience member’s wallet or in somebody’s shoe. Once, it reappeared on the dashboard of the volunteer’s car after the show.
Seidman also does pocket-picking stunts, such as taking a watch or wallet without the owner noticing.
“Everything I take, I always give back in the most humorous way possible,” he said. “And I never embarrass my audience volunteers. They have as much fun as I do.”
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