Half A Decade of Magic

All month I've been patiently awaiting the 27th of March to mark my 5 year work anniversary and counting down all last week, Friday finally arrived and I FORGOT! I feel so dumb. I mean we did have 3 shows that day and then made the 3 hour trip to Columbia but still I had been waiting forever for that day! What's even worse is I just realized last night that I missed it... *facepalm*
I cannot believe I've been sucked into the world of magic for this long already! It seems like just yesterday I was arguing with Brandon that I would be a good assistant and I don't care if I get hurt trying to jump in and out of the boxes. He had to trust me that I could do it.
I've been searching and searching, honestly I used to have it, the picture from my very first official show with Brandon. I was wearing my pink dress and a silk rolled up into a flower in my hair with a bobby pin. It was as ugly as it sounds, trust me. And the show was beyond awful since the audience just didn't care but hey I was a magic assistant. I finally got what I wanted.

The oldest photos I can find are from this show at my 16th birthday party

Magic wasn't quite what I expected it to be though. There's a lot more to it than it looks. So many hours of rehearsal. Lots of trial and error. Which is always embarrassing during a show. The whole idea of trying to leave feelings offstage and pretend like everything is just great and you weren't trying to kill each other behind the curtain.
Over these past 5 years I have done things I would have never done on my own. I've performed for thousands of people. Signed lots of autographs. Travel to amazing places. Entertained at some really unique events. Performed along side with some of the most talented people I've ever met. And most importantly I've made some of the best friends. Magic is a pretty dog eat dog world so if you find a good friend, stick with them.
I've changed so much over these past 5 years not just as a performer but as a person. Obviously my looks have changed, you don't go from 15-20 looking the same. My attitude has changed. Growing up with divorced parents you tend to be a little rough around the edges and don't put up with a lot because you don't trust a lot but I'm still learning to get better about this. My confidence has increased. Yes I get more compliments and confidence as Hannah Lynne than as Hannah Wagster but slowly it helps. Our relationship has changed. When Brandon and I first started working together, we broke up within 3 months. We could not figure out the balance but now we do it pretty well. (I think that's what I'm going to blog about next.) To me atleast all of these changes are good.

I just want to say a huge thank you to everyone who has helped me become the magic assistant I am today! Without your help honestly I don't know where I'd be. Thank you to John Tudor, Joey Vazquez, Kohle Leaphart, Joe Daniels and of course my handsome husband... You guys are pretty much responsible for molding me hands on to perform like I do. There's so many assistant I look up to and wish I could thank personally for inspiring me, that's on my bucket list to meet some of the famous assistants I look up to!

Here's to another 5 years!

LAAMA Lecture 1.0

Guys, Life As A Magic Assistant shortened is LAAMA. It's like llama. They are so cool. Ok well I found this exciting anyways...
So last night I was finally pushed out of my comfort zone and did a shortened version of what I hope to become my lecture. It was pretty scary, I'm not gonna lie. Acting on stage is easy, but just talking to people is a nightmare to me. It's an introvert thing. By the end it was pretty easy but man did I get myself worked out about it. I was so nervous I didn't rehearse it because I knew that would just make things worse.

I tried to focus on the most informative subjects for if you are wanting to find an assistant for your show and how they should look, stand, act, etc. Eventually I would love to dabble more into things like history, different types of characters and things of that nature.
Brandon stood up there with me and gave input to keep me in line if I stumbled but now looking back at it I probably could have done it myself once I got past the first 5 minutes and next time I will but I needed my rock there for the premiere.
One thing I didn't think about before hand is how many people are uneducated in this subject so there wasn't as much agreeing and head nodding going on like there is at most magic lectures. My very first question was how many people have used an assistant before and only 3 or 4 raised their hand. I flat out told them I was disappointed, it really shocked me. Why would you not want someone to help you, even it's just as a stage hand? We make life so much easier for the magician!
My favorite thing were people's questions. They had so many! My favorite question was what do magic assistants talk about when they get together. Horror stories usually, comparing battle scars... but my favorite thing about hanging out with other assistants is we usually play in each other's boxes. If we have never been in that illusion before the other will walk you through how to position in it. Always a fun experience!

I can understand why so many magicians don't know that much about assisting, there is almost nothing about it to research. I've gotten my hands on a handful of books about them. There can't be more than 10 out there. There's only one real documentary, Women in Boxes, which is AMAZING by the way. Then there are few books out there that have excerpts about assistants. I've tried to track down a few radio interviews about them without much luck. There's just not many resources out there sadly. God bless Ann Patchett, I'm sure her writing is wonderful but she has made researching magician's assistants a whole heck of a lot harder by titling her book The Magician's Assistant.

 I'll keep everyone updated on how this lecture thing goes, I'd love to travel with it. We shall see. Hoping to work on my book soon. I have a few more MA books I will be purchasing soon to add to my collection and research in. I also want to be able to have a few things available for sale when I go around lecturing so I will be looking into some ideas soon. Any suggestions are appreciated!
Oh yeah, I got to break in my new costume yesterday! After 4 1/2 years I am finally rid of that pixie dress that has been my signature outfit and replaced it with this one. Hope you guys like it!

Thunder & Light shows are now weekly so please come check out the show. Every Thursday at 4! Hope to see you there!

It's Finally Happening!

So we have discovered recently that some people still think we are moving or have moved. Well that would be a negative. Guess you should have read the last blog ;)
We are staying and a lot of people have been wondering what could be so important to make us stay after we were all gung ho about leaving. Well now we can finally spill the beans!
Our dream ever since moving to Myrtle Beach back in July 2012 was to have our own theatre show, which we did at the time, or to work with the best theatre in town... Well after waiting what seems like forever, we finally got the call. Anyone ever heard of The Calvin Gilmore Theatre? How about "The Carolina Opry"?

Literally a month to the day of us moving, we received a call from the president of their company asking if we would be interested in performing some magic in a new very high energy show that they were trying out this fall. We received that call on a Monday, we auditioned the next Monday and were going to watch the show that Thursday. On Wednesday they called and asked if instead of watching would we like to go ahead and try performing with them. I'm sure you can guess what we chose to do! 

We're excited to announce that we are joining their show "Thunder & Light" featuring the amazing clogging group All That! from America's Got Talent. These are some of the most talented guys we have ever met and we are so thrilled to be working with them!

Here's an awesome review of the new show from TripAdvisor:

“Our group watched the new “Thunder and Light” show today at The Carolina Opry. We were absolutely blown away by the amazing talent of the “All That” cloggers, dancers, magic act... It was a high energy show, about 1 hour in length, that made the audience feel as though they were on stage with the cast!” 

Doesn't that make you want to come see the show?! We will post a picture of the schedule on our fan page and you can always go to their website www.thecarolinaopry.com or call 843-913-4000.

With our last theatre gig we only performed for 3 months and technically now we have already been with this theatre 3 months so I'd say this is already off to a much better start! This has all been brewing since September but anyone in theatre knows it's a process getting a new show off the ground.

Our next show is on January 17th so make sure to start out your new year with a bang and come see this amazing show! Our calender is already filling up so you'll have plenty of opportunities to see it again. We're so excited for this new opportunity and can't wait to see where it takes us!

Reflections

What? Didn't I just write a blog post about the year ending? 2014 is over. Once again I'm glad it's time for a new year. I thought last year was difficult. I definitely wasn't ready for this year. Yeah we did some cool shows and performed for more people this year than ever before but man has it been emotionally exhausting.
As I look back I'm kinda disappointed at how little we did this year. It was a hard year of lots of transitions. Everyone kept saying this is your year, this is your year. Well yes now I see it but it took until the very end to get there.
January brought that awesome bull riding show with our biggest audience to date. I also experienced Disney World for the first time. I never dreamed I would get to go there, and now I want to go back EVERYDAY.

Our marriage went through some hard times and we did quite a bit of counseling but I'm happy to say our relationship is healing and our marriage is stronger than ever before. I love Brandon more everyday.

Spring, I don't have a flipping clue what happened. I mean we did some shows but nothing significant.
Summer, there's always a bunch of shows especially at the Sea Mist resort. We did the super legit show at Alabama Theatre and got some good footage for promo videos, which we will definitely be putting out next year. We also said our final goodbyes to our sweet dog and that spun me into depression for a little while.
Fall we spent packing and getting ready to move and then everything changed which was very frustrating and exciting at the same time. We can't wait to tell you guys about the super amazing news.
Winter is kinda just starting. December's been fun getting everything finalized. Oh and I met a 637 pound sea lion named Bruce. Kind of one of my favorite things ever.

Looking forward to a fresh start. I'm gonna back into my yoga. We got a juicer, so I'm starting that soon. Brandon has agreed to become vegetarian with me. Well we will see how long it will last for him haha. I'm getting off my birth control because I'm sick of taking chemicals everyday. It's time to get my body in the shape I want it to be. I'm hoping to get a car this year. We will be looking into atleast renting a house by this time next year. Our new job already has us a lot of shows lined up for next year and we can't wait to see how far we improve over the year. Next year we are getting new costumes, a much needed photoshoot, website revamp, and promo video. And hopefully that new illusion. It's time for some change. "Stagnation is artistic death"
Well I may or may not actually stay up until the ball drops because we just had a show a few hours ago and I'm exhausted. Eh I'll probably nap until right before. But I'm gonna atleast go drink my sparkling grape juice and kiss Brandon to start out 2015 right. Happy New Years Everyone! I'll see ya on the flip side.

Change of Plans

Soooo this is awkward. After our huge announcement, guess who's NOT moving? 

Yep, that's exactly how I felt. Well like they always say God has better plans for His children. Something came up here in Myrtle Beach literally a month to the day of us moving. Everything is still under wraps right now but we're hoping to be able to announce something soon. Sorry for all the confusion!
I've been itching to blog and let everyone know but it's been insanity.
Now we're just trying to get back to "normal". We unpacked the majority of our stuff and redecorated. You guys we bought our first lamp, we're growing up. *sniffle* Since we are staying we atleast wanted things to be different... That includes this. I spent like 2 days redoing the entire look of the blog. Please tell me you like the changes!
The background is that awesome pattern we like to use for all our promo stuff and it looks like Haunted Mansion wall paper. Double win. Then I got the purple colors to match our logo. The Frozen picture is our inside joke. You'd be amazed at how many times a child will look at Brandon before a show and say that. We always bust out laughing. I now have a bio. Woohoo! I'm ashamed it took so long to get all these things done.
We are working on new illusions now which is super exciting. Brandon has a halfway working prototype for an illusion that he will do. We are working on a new illusion for me as well.
In other awesome news, I got to play in another illusion. My bucket list includes getting in as many different illusions as I possibly can, not necessarily perform them but just get in them. I've now performed in 8 and played with 5. The wonderful Josh & Lea Knotts let us play in one of theirs this past week at the state fair. It was crazy deceptive!

Well that was all rather random but that's what has been going on lately. I'll keep you updated with all the big stuff. If I don't post again before the 31st, Happy Halloween! (Considering it's my favorite holiday I'm sure I will)