Responder: Joe M. Turner, Chief Impossibility Officer
Name of Company: TurnerMagic.com
Name of Show: Fringe Enigmas: magic & mentalism for the curious
“My hope is that beyond just enjoying a show of magic and mentalism, you’ll leave with your curiosity about yourself and the world in a slightly itchier state than when you came in.”
- Why should people see your show?
If you’re always 100% absolutely content with plain ol’ cause-and-effect, force-equals-mass-times-acceleration reality, then maybe this isn’t the show for you. But if you like seeing someone poke fun little holes in expectations — including your own — then I hope you’ll come. My hope is that beyond just enjoying a show of magic and mentalism, you’ll leave with your curiosity about yourself and the world in a slightly itchier state than when you came in.
- What about festivals intrigues you? And why the Atlanta Fringe?
I have long appreciated the challenge of short-form theatre. I entered a one-page play contest back in my summer stock days — of course, I entered a one-page musical! — and winning that little contest sparked my interest. Later on in college I wrote a one-act, 45-minute musical that was produced in multiple states and in Canada. All in all it made the rounds for about ten years after I wrote it. And of course my work now, for corporate events and places like the Magic Castle, requires shows of 20-25 or 45-50 minutes. Trying to give people a satisfying experience in a compressed time frame is an intriguing constraint.
I like the idea of fringe as a place to put things like this in front of real audiences, knowing that sometimes it will be amazingly successful and sometimes it will be appreciated as a valiant attempt! And of course, this year I’m celebrating my 30th year living in Atlanta, so being part of the Atlanta Fringe is a special honor. It is, in fact, my very first fringe experience as a performer.
- What inspired you to create this?
My colleagues in magic have always said that they appreciate my taste in material, and that I have a good eye for material. But I think over the past few years, I have really started to reach a more mature understanding of who I am, my point of view, and what that should mean for my performances. That, frankly, is the crux of the motivation to do this show.
I envy the performers who reach these realizations in their twenties rather than waiting until their fifties to start to understand who they are. But better late than never!
- Life has been weird the last few years, to say the least. How has the “real world” affected the art you’re creating?
I was performing on a cruise ship in the South China Sea in February 2020 when the ports closed. We left Guam and never stopped again for almost two weeks. Our original destinations — Hong Kong, Taipei, the Phillippines, Saipan, multiple places in Vietnam — all of these ports informed us that even though nobody on our ship was sick, we were not stopping there. We finally got clearance to dock in Singapore and I came home. I knew about a month before the shutdown what was coming. And then on about March 13-14, my calendar for the rest of the year started to fall apart. By the middle of the following week, everything I had planned for 2020 was gone.
I launched a virtual show on April 3, 2020. By the end of May, my virtual show had been recommended twice in the New York Times. The “real world” pushed me to learn how to perform in another venue: on camera from my home. I learned about lighting and sound and software and that definitely gave me not just new performance experiences, but also gave me reinforcement to believe that I can address changing circumstances and find a path forward.
As a speaker to corporate audiences, I realized early on that after the pandemic was over, I absolutely had to have a story that was about more than sitting at home watching Netflix and complaining or fretting. If I couldn’t point to something and say, “Here’s how I decided to persevere… here’s how I chose to continue to be creative and productive in the most challenging situation we’ve faced in decades,” then I would never have the credibility to step on a platform again to ask people to do that for themselves or their organizations. So I did.
- What have you learned from working on your show so far?
Mostly stuff we all already know:
– For creative people, ideas are generally easy and fun.
– Planning and admin stuff are generally not. I forgot about this deadline until the email showed up reminding me.
– It takes guts to get on a stage and put the fruit of your creativity in front of an audience.
- There’s a mysterious stranger in the back row of your show, wearing a big ol’ N95 mask and a baseball cap and there’s something weirdly familiar about them, and then they come up afterwards to tell you they loved your show. In your WILDEST DREAMS, who is this mysterious stranger? (Bonus points if your mysterious stranger is an Atlanta celeb.)
Hmmm. Wildest dream — probably Carol Burnett. She has been someone I’ve admired and wanted to meet for decades. I described why in a two-minute interview a couple of years ago.
For an Atlanta connection, I would say Dick Van Dyke. My reasoning follows lots of the same reasons as Carol Burnett – and I mention him in that interview above — but Mr. Van Dyke actually had a show at the Grady Hotel, a show on Channel 11, and lived in Atlanta for a while in the 1950s.
- Fringes are the place to really push the boundaries so we gotta ask: are you inviting your family to this show are “Hey, maybe sit this one out you guys…”
Everyone is invited. At this point in my career, my family knows what to expect even when they don’t know what to expect.
- Will your show change the world?
I will answer this short philosophical question with a short philosophical response:
Every show changes the world.
- Zoom meetings: dress up head to toe or Donald Duck it?
True confession: once I did my whole Zoom show in a business suit and tie, cufflinks, and bedroom slippers.
My usual practice is to be dressed for a full-length shot, just in case something happens and I have to stand up unexpectedly.
- We’re making an excellent Fringey Feelings playlist. Describe your show in two or three songs we can add to keep the jams flowing.
– “Overture” from “Merrily We Roll Along,” Original Broadway Cast Recording, Stephen Sondheim, 1981
– “Magic to Do” from “Pippin,” Original Broadway Cast Recording, Stephen Schwartz, 1972
– “On a Wonderful Day Like Today,” from “The Roar of the Greasepaint, The Smell of Crowd,” Anthony Newley & Leslie Bricusse, 1964 (UK)/1965 (Broadway), but particularly the Shirley Bassey performance at the Monte Carlo Sporting Club in 1970 or the recording from her “At the Pigalle” album which is available on Spotify
Sounds amazing, right? Click here to learn more and get your tickets to this show today.
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