Fitzkee, Dariel: Showmanship for Magicians
Book One of the Fitzkee Trilogy
©1943 Magic Ltd
©1945 Magic Limited
Hardcover, 202 Pages

Comments: Magic Theory. This is the first of an acclaimed set of books useful for helping the magician hone his presentation of magic.

Contents: (Numbers are not page numbers)

1 Introduction
2 The need for this book
3 Much applies to all entertainers
4 Why I have dared
5 Well, he's working
6 Collected by the show business
7 The unmentionable appeal

8 Chapter I: Do Magicians Need Higher Entertainment Standards?
9 The only reason for showmanship
10 The fallacy that magic always entertains
11 Why changing standards have made new presentation methods necessary
12 The spectators themselves
13 The damage poor presentation does
14 Clues from the show business
15 See the performance as the spectators do

16 Chapter II: Things From Another Era
17 Who the average magician is
18 Tables and the one
19 Boss shay
20 The circus adopts modern taste
21 Look at the stuff and hang your head
22 Whose fault is it?
23 Second childhood
24 Magicians as strange characters
25 Glib and idle talk
26 Dismal patter
27 Stumbling all around
28 Secrets are not important
29 Flunkies
30 What do you prefer for entertainment?

31 Chapter III: How to Find Out What the Public Really Wants
32 The magic of attendance
33 Motion pictures
34 Stage musicals
35 Dramatic shows
36 Vaudeville
37 Night clubs
38 Burlesque
39 Opera
40 Concert
41 Ballet
42 The secret of the appeal of drama
43 Romance, rehearsal and punch
44 Specially written material
45 Unified routine
46 What show business reveals
47 Who gets the dollar?
48 Build to customer preferences

49 Chapter IV: The Things Big Audiences Really Buy
50 Dissection for diagnosis
51 Analysis of audience appeals
52 Where the average magician misses
53 Make them like you in as many ways as they can
54 Quantity and variety
55 Modernizing the mental act

56 Chapter V: How Music Adds Interest
57 The foundational principles upon which the whole show business is based
58 Shaping magic to these standards not difficult
59 Music
60 Not a tiny little valse
61 Mood, background, situation and character through music
62 Pennies from heaven versus the miser
63 Audience sympathy
64 Intermezzo to a snootful
65 Murder to music
66 The Anvil Chorus and the heathen Chinese

67 Chapter VI: Rhythm, Youth and Sex Appeal
68 Tap your foot to top billing
69 Stardust and a beautiful blonde
70 Stop, look and listen
71 Walk-ons
72 Who is the greatest magician, and rhythm
73 Life begins at forty, but Factor's helps
74 Gals as gals
75 Stress without vulgarity
76 Glamour sells tickets
77 Indirect methods are best
78 On being unaware and subtle

79 Chapter VII: Personality and the Necessity of Selling Yourself
80 People are more interested in people
81 The big stars and what they have in common
82 How individuality makes the star
83 Only one result possible
84 How a pleasing personality is achieved
85 Dale Carnegie's magic book
86 Only five ways to reach a spectator
87 Two most important
88 The sound and fury
89 Make yourself different
90 Identifications
91 They must please the spectators
92 Try it yourself
93 Material and style
94 Push the man, not the tricks
95 Picking your own pocket

96 Chapter VIII: Color, Harmony, Sentiment, Romance
97 Color in keeping only in certain cases
98 Think of the other stuff
99 Artificial lights and color
100 The conventional is dangerous
101 Many meanings to harmony
102 Good taste, and a sense for fitness
103 Sentiment pays dividends
104 Hats
105 Love, and a two timing daddy
106 Conjuring courtship
107 Nostalgia, not neuralgia

108 Chapter IX: Timing and Pointing
109 What timing is
110 Examples abound
111 Emphasizing to sell the idea
112 The gradual ritard
113 Piano solo with razor blade accompaniment
114 Timing for punch
115 Amateurs don't like it
116 Volunteer critics
117 Pointing for mayhem
118 What pointing is
119 Lazy pointing to a very fast trick
120 The factors to stress
121 Good general rules

122 Chapter X: Surprise, Unity, Character and Situation
123 An effective expedient
124 Logical development best
125 Surprise with punch
126 Unity, the connecting thread
127 What unity is
128 Examples
129 Characters
130 What they are
131 How they trap audience interest
132 Back to unity again
133 More ways of achieving it
134 It may be bird, beast or fish
135 Maintaining character
136 People are interested in people, again
137 How character is revealed
138 Situation, what it is
139 Conflict brings consequences
140 Russell Swann and situation
141 Situation and a nude young woman

142 Chapter XI: Costuming, Grooming, Make-up, Personal Behavior and Smoothness
143 Proper costume and careful grooming essential
144 Old out-of-date clothes at a party
145 Clothes make the character
146 When there is doubt, there is no doubt
147 Well groomed routine
148 What, when and how
149 Being at ease
150 Let the subconscious do the work
151 On standing still
152 Be particular about make-up
153 How to find out how to dress
154 How to avoid having to have the hands cut off
155 Facial expression with a floy-floy
156 Voice placement, not ventriloquism
157 Stage fright
158 What it is and how to eliminate it
159 Poise a la Old Granddad
160 And smoothness

161 Chapter XII: Confidence Through Rehearsal
162 How to gain confidence
163 What rehearsal really is
164 What it is in the beginning
165 Time limits
166 On acquiring material
167 Putting the act together
168 Get good advice
169 Magicians are poor judges
170 Every little movement
171 The walk-through
172 What is action?
173 Climbing the golden stairs
174 What lift and movement are
175 The grind of rehearsal
176 On correcting mistakes

177 Chapter XIII: Physical Action, Group Coordination, Precise Attack, Economy and Brevity
178 Why people like physical action
179 How it can be incorporated in magic
180 How group coordination may be applied to magic
181 Coordination with money, hats and water
182 Stupendous trickery
183 Out with the flunkey
184 Again, people are interested in people
185 A game of catch
186 With rope, too
187 What precise attack is
188 What economy it
189 Getting his money's worth
190 What brevity is, and how to achieve it
191 Holding attention

192 Chapter XIV: Efficient Pacing, Punch, Instinct Appeals, Combined Appeals, Grace, Effortless Skill, Spectacle and Contrast
193 How to pace efficiently
194 What punch is
195 How to acquire it
196 From 36 gals
197 Why magic acts lack punch
198 Instinct appeals and responses
199 Ganging them up
200 How to be graceful
201 How to make your skill seem effortless
202 Sure-fire material
203 What spectacle is
204 How to create it
205 Contrast for emphasis

206 Chapter XV: Comedy: Its importance
207 Subordinate tricks to comedy
208 Comedy is a serious business
209 Where to learn about it
210 Various kinds of comedy
211 Humor and wit
212 Jest and joke
213 The laughable, ludicrous, comical, droll, ridiculous
214 Satire irony, caricature and burlesque
215 Comedy in the difficulties of others
216 Twenty-four causes for laughter
217 Some suggestions

218 Chapter XVI: Getting and Holding Interest and Attention
219 Success is proportionate to interest
220 The kinds of attention
221 Voluntary and involuntary
222 What kind of attention is interest
223 Keep within the spectators' world
224 My stuff is over their heads"
225 How to bring your act within the spectators' worlds
226 The three classes of people
227 Fit the act to the people
228 Contact through the "other woman"
229 Emotion, what makes it tick
230 Fatigue
231 Patterns

232 Chapter XVII: Types of Audiences and Their Preferences
233 Why you have to know your audiences
234 Eleven kinds of audiences
235 The kind of material and angle of attack
236 Kids, men, women and mixed audiences
237 Drunk and sober
238 Two more groups often neglected
239 What these audiences are interested in
240 The patterns to follow

241 Chapter XVIII: How to Routine
242 Planning every minute detail
243 Tricks as materials
244 How to make a trick "arrangement"
245 Interpretation is everything
246 Tricks are skeletons only
247 Top entertainers insist upon special, exclusive material
248 Routines are individual
249 The three-act idea
250 An example with a pocket trick
251 A trick is like sheet music
252 Are musicians more painstaking than magicians?
253 Routine defined
254 An example with a stage trick
255 An example with an illusion
256 'Hammy' magic

257 Chapter XIX: How to Routine: Continued
258 Don't drag in tricks by the ears
259 Find a reasonable cause
260 How a logical cause colors the whole routine
261 Mora wands with sex appeal and a moral
262 A Good Neighbor presentation of the cut rope, and a situation
263 Rising cards with Boogie-Woogie
264 Look out for stock instructions
265 The spark of life
266 How to keep from boring house guests
267 A routine for company

268 Chapter XX: How to Get Ideas For Acts
269 The name for a performance
270 Acts are ideas
271 An act from a trick
272 An act from a character in a situation
273 An act from sex appeal
274 Acts from confidence games
275 Waller suggests "perverse magic"
276 The neophyte magician
277 Impersonations of well-known people
278 From characters and character types
279 From an ultimate impression
280 From a situation
281 By taking another act apart
282 From Folies Bergere to International Magicians
283 My slip showed
284 A revue act from a trick
285 More suggestions

286 Chapter XXI: How to Put An Act Together
287 Getting the materials together
288 Stock apparatus
289 How to make your props convincing and in keeping with the act idea
290 Preparing spoken material
291 Preparing music score
292 Putting in cues
293 Cue sheets for curtains and lights
294 Property lists
295 You're on!

296 Chapter XXII: How to Make Your Act Salable
297 The formula for the shortest route to success
298 Making the product like they want it
299 How to take an act apart to see what makes it tick
300 The booker is the guy to please
301 The longer way
302 The scarcity of geniuses

303 Chapter XXIII: A Magic Show in the Modern Manner
304 A new slant on magic presentation
305 A revue with magic as the theme
306 Where it differs from the usual magic show
307 Ouch!
308 Cocktails and cash
309 Tails and tricks
310 Stubs and sparks
311 Memory with music
312 The cut-ups
313 A bottle of spirits
314 East is East
315 It's just things like this
316 All wet
317 A bride and a bathing suit
318 Lunch
319 Beauty and the bird
320 My hat, please
321 Snorted again
322 It's murder, he says
323 Stardust
324 Oh, daddy
325 Slow and fast
326 And stuff

327 Chapter XXIV: Finale
328 An inventory
329 Salesmanship
330 Likable qualities
331 Don't don't
332 Grooming
333 Ease and confidence
334 Prepare thoroughly
335 Talk
336 Props
337 Smile
338 Bows
339 Building up to a hand
340 Emphasis
341 Be in style

342 Chapter XXV: Check Charts
343 Appeals: A list of audience appeals
344 Idea: Check chart on act ideas
345 Routine: Check chart on routines
346 Performance: Check chart for performances
347 After Performance: Things to think of after the show, packing and review
348 Act Revisions: Things to think of at the hooch session
349 Applause: Confirming Audience feedback

Magic Theory. This is the first of an acclaimed set of books useful for helping the magician hone his presentation of magic.