Keith Brown is looking to unlock your sense of childlike wonder with his 2022 Edmonton Fringe show, Absolute Magic. Info Edmonton learns more about what brings Brown back to the Edmonton Fringe festival year after year.
How did you get your start as a magician?
Well, I’ve been doing magic for over 20 years, believe it or not. My first foray into magic was when I was about 6 or 7 years old. My brother showed me a card trick and, not only did I want to know, I kind of needed to now, and I annoyed the crap out of him until he told me. This is kind of around the David Blaine era of TV. And then, a few years later, I saw another trick on the internet, so I found the old magic books and started practicing again. That was when I was 10 or 11. Then, someone offered me money when I was 13 and I never looked back.
This is your 39th Fringe Festival. What keeps bringing you back to the Fringe Festival atmosphere?
Well, the Edmonton Fringe festival is the largest Fringe Festival in North America and they have it down to a science. They figured out the formula, they know how to give a great audience experience, they know how to treat artists. It’s a great community event. It’s not just theatre—they have outdoor stuff, they have food vendors, they have musicians, they have concerts, they have everything, which is really great.
But, years ago, I saw a magician at my hometown Fringe Festival. And that’s what sort of introduced me to Fringes. And, at the time, there weren’t many magic venues in the world, let alone London, Ontario. So to see the Fringe as a space where you can produce yourself and you can see yourself on stage, that was a catalyst. I thought, ‘Hey, this is a lot easier than renting a venue myself and trying to find a spot to put myself into somewhere where I may not fit’. Whereas, at the Fringe, I was like ‘I see myself here’.
The other thing is the people. Not only friends and artists but there’s patrons that I only get to see once a year. We get to catch up every single year and talk about our lives and how we’re doing and the shows that we’re excited to see. So that’s what brings me back, these connections that I get to make in every festival and these people that I get to reconnect with year after year.
What is something audiences might not know about your show?
I advertise my show as family-friendly, but it’s not for kids. It’s for everybody. I started working for adults, I do a lot of corporate events and private parties, things where there are no kids. So I think anyone can come to my show and enjoy it. There’s something for everyone. It doesn’t matter how old you are, you can still be a kid and have a sense of wonder and play. I want to tap into everyone’s inner child.
The other thing I would say about this show that they may not know is that it’s inspired from the pandemic. I’ve been sitting at home, performing for a camera in my bedroom. So, I pretty much took all that equipment and brought it with me. I normally do a stand-up magic show with lots of audience participation. This year, I’m doing card tricks at a table, and we’re projecting it on a giant movie screen. So there’s no bad seats in the house.
What other Fringe shows are you excited for?
My friend John Paterson’s show called How I Met My Mother. I got to stage manage it in Ottawa, and we’ve been good Fringe friends for over a decade. John has been on the Fringe for 25 years and this is the first show that is all him, that he wrote, that he’s acting in. It’s very heartfelt, it’s funny, but it’ll also rip your heart out.
The other show I would recommend is Meatball Séance. I walked into that show knowing nothing, and then was like, ‘I’m on a rollercoaster and I’m here for it’. The premise is that he cooks his mother meatballs to bring her back from the dead so that she can meet his boyfriend, and his boyfriend is someone from the audience.
Other recommendations: 1-MAN NO-SHOW, In Search of Cruise Control, Clip Show, and Are you lovin’ it?
Don’t miss Absolute Magic at the Big Rock Backstage Theatre at this year’s Fringe festival! Get tickets here.
