Connecting up with friends from out of town is always fun. A week ago Geoff was in town from Austin and we met up in Prospect Park. Here is the interview I conducted with this young energetic magician/sideshow performer and internet ‘twitch’ show host.
I had known Bradley for many years. Ever since he returned from his studies with master mime Etienne Decroux in Paris. We stayed in touch and spoke on the phone periodically during the last few years. He was living near Washington DC. I was producing/shooting some video interviews for my blog post on Jack Adams. Bradley was in NY visiting the APAP conference and came over for the interviews that are posted here.
A wonderful person and charming performer. R.I.P. Bradley Fields.
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Bradley as the ‘barker’ in the Broadway show ‘Barnum’ that Opened in 1980.
Bradley spent a few years as an assistant to magician Jack Adams. Here is an interview I did with Bradley about his time with Jack.
Bradley Fields at the APAP convention promoting all his shows.
This is a link to Bradley Fields website!
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Taking a short break from the festivities at The Southern Sideshow Hootenanny I found a corner of the upstairs at Cafe Instanbul and invited Sansa Asylum to do an interview for Vaudevisuals.
For more information about Sansa go here!
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Vaudevisuals interview with Kate Owens and her director Lucy Shelby. Talking about the new show “Kate and Ilyssa Present: The Best Ritual”.
For more information/tickets go here!
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Wonderful interview with magic man Greg Dubin talking about his upcoming show.
For more information/tickets CLICK THIS!
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Apart from a handful of exotic–and almost completely unreliable–tales surrounding his life, Richard Potter is almost unknown today. Two hundred years ago, however, he was the most popular entertainer in America–the first showman, in fact, to win truly nationwide fame. Working as a magician and ventriloquist, he personified for an entire generation what a popular performer was and made an invaluable contribution to establishing popular entertainment as a major part of American life. His story is all the more remarkable in that Richard Potter was also a black man.
This was an era when few African Americans became highly successful, much less famous. As the son of a slave, Potter was fortunate to have opportunities at all. At home in Boston, he was widely recognized as black, but elsewhere in America audiences entertained themselves with romantic speculations about his “Hindu” ancestry (a perception encouraged by his act and costumes).
Richard Potter’s (1783 – 1835) performances were enjoyed by an enormous public, but his life off stage has always remained hidden and unknown. Now, for the first time, John A. Hodgson tells the remarkable, compelling–and ultimately heartbreaking–story of Potter’s life, a tale of professional success and celebrity counterbalanced by a racial vulnerability in an increasingly hostile world. It is a story of race relations, too, and of remarkable, highly influential black gentlemanliness and respectability: as the unsung precursor of Frederick Douglass, Richard Potter demonstrated to an entire generation of Americans that a black man, no less than a white man, could exemplify the best qualities of humanity. The apparently trivial “popular entertainment” status of his work has long blinded historians to his significance and even to his presence. Now, at last, we can recognize him as a seminal figure in American history.
Inscription: In memory of RICHARD POTTER The Celebrated VENTRILOQUIST who died Sept. 20th, 1835, Aged 52 years.
The book can be purchased here.
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More information on Richard Potter here.
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Cardone came over yesterday to tell me about the upcoming Tribute he is planning and producing with Slipper Room’s James Habacker.
A Tribute to our friend Johnny Fox
John Robert Fox (November 13, 1953 – December 17, 2017)
Thursday, Feb. 1st 7:00 pm @The Slipper Room
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John Robert Fox (November 13, 1953 – December 17, 2017)
Click here for more information on this great event!
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Interview with Johnny Fox posted on Radio Vaudeville (from Busker Hall of Fame)
Johnny Fox performing the ‘tongue skewer’.
Johnny Fox at his ‘Freakatorium’ located in the Lower East Side. Open from 1999 to 2005.
From Wikipedia:
In June 1999, Fox opened the Freakatorium, El Museo Loco, a museum of sideshow curiosities, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. In the face of low numbers of visitors and rising rent, the museum was closed in January 2005. Fox was partly inspired to open the museum by his childhood visits to Hubert’s Museum and Flea Circus in Times Square. His collection of oddities includes narwhal tusks, an elephant’s-foot liquor chest, a two-headed turtle, a vest owned by General Tom Thumb, and the glass eye of Sammy Davis, Jr.
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Hope to see you all at The Slipper Room on Thursday to Celebrate Johnny Fox!
Hosting the evening’s entertainment was ‘Magic Brian‘.
First up was the ‘Amazing HouDino’ performing a wonderful card trick with his father Magic Brian.
HouDino carefully selected a card as audience volunteer looks on.
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Penelope the Clown carried a cinder block on stage. WOW..must have been heavy.
Albert Kirchner does some funny standup material.
Ellia Bisker and Adam Kuchler perform a lovely duet with uke and bells.
The Flying Luango Brothers performed a musically accompanied escape/magic act.
Christie Cahill and Amy Schulster perform a wonderful aerial act.
Magic Brian places HouDino on the stage with his ‘straight jacket’ sweater ready to escape.
HouDino escapes the ‘straight jacket’ sweater with time to spare and a nice smile.
Magic Brian moves the show along with the classic ‘linking rings’ routine.
Ambrose gets an audience member to ‘nose up’ and hands him a whip cream pie.
Ambrose gets the pie in the face as both he and the audience member laugh.
Carol Sirugo performs a solo piece about mountain ranger guide.
Greg Dubin performs the lovely classic magic routine ‘cups and balls‘.
Jerline Custa performs 3 ball juggling on the unicycle.
Lucy Shelby performs a ‘political’ piece with an audience member.
Maks and Skyttles perform an enchanting aerial drama.
Curtain call for the cast and MC of the Feb 2017 Bindlestiff Open Stage Variety Revue.
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Originally recorded in 2009 as part of the NY Downtown Clown series.
Kevin is asked to answer some specific questions about his life, work and career.
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PART 2 of the interview with Kevin C Carr.
ALBERT CADABRA: The Great Deceiver is a professional, award-winning, comedy sideshow magician who delivers powerful, amazing and devilishly wild magic. Albert pushes and twists the boundaries of the art of magic with unique performances including; eating razor blades and a 3’-long balloon, hammering 6” spikes into his face, electrocuting himself with 2,000 volts of electricity and turning his assistant into a gorilla. He makes people and animals appear and vanish at will and escapes from chains, shackles, locked crates and straight jackets—all with the flair, style, class and great sense of humor you would expect from this seasoned, professional magician.
Watch him perform acts of the Strange, the Odd and the Bizarre LIVE at Ripley's Believe It or Not in Times Square every EVERY Wed-Sun at the bottom of every hour (that's 1:30, 2:30 3:30 etct)
234 42nd Street, Times Square NYC (7th & 8th ave)
Originally appeared on:
https://vaudevisuals.com
For more information on Albert Cadabra:
http://www.albertcadabra.com/
