I grew up in a small town in the southeast corner of Kansas. Iola was the kind of town where everyone knew each other and you could get anywhere in town in five minutes.
Our claim to fame was the “largest downtown courthouse square in the US”, a beautifully cultivated center to the town, lined with local shops and restaurants. My father’s law firm was there, too, which meant I spent much of my childhood wandering around the town square.
A block from the town square was my favorite location in Iola: the Bowlus Fine Arts Center. In the 1960’s our little town (two hours away from any major city in Kansas) had been gifted an incredible performing arts center by a local banker. His will gave instructions that the center be used for the local school district’s arts education programs.
We may have only had a handful of fast food restaurants and shops to visit, along with just a few hangout spots to spend our time, but we did have the Bowlus. And it is magnificent.
I’m talking a state-of-the-art theater that seats 750 people (when I lived there the population of my hometown was 5900), along with smaller spaces, rehearsal rooms, and classrooms. And before I even started kindergarten, the Bowlus had changed my life.
I remember watching a plethora of musicals and plays on that stage before I even knew that the people onstage were actors. I was so hypnotized by what I saw that I was convinced that it was real. My parents explained to me that those people in the community theater productions were the same people I saw in our local restaurants and churches and schools and shops. They were the people we sat next to at sporting events and greeted on the way to work.
That was the moment that I knew I would spend my life onstage.
In elementary school we would trek over to the Bowlus to watch performances. There are too many to name, but each excited me more than the last. Sitting in the dark inside our beautiful fine arts center filled me with excitement. We may have been a simple town in the middle of the country but when those lights went down I was in another world: I was in ancient times with Shakespeare or the magical land of Oz or walking through a wardrobe into the unknown land of Narnia.
It was incredible.
In kindergarten my dad told me a great story. Sometime in the 1970’s a famous magician - Harry Blackstone, Jr. - had come to town and performed his show at the Bowlus.
(You may not know who Blackstone was but take it from me - he is a legend amongst magicians. His father was a famous magician, too, and Jr. had continued the family tradition of classical magic in large theaters around the country. When I was five or six and just getting interested in magic I would raid our local library for anything I could find on the matter. There were just a few books and one VHS tape. That tape was a recording of Harry Blackstone, Jr.’s live show. I must have watched that tape a thousand times.
So now that you understand my adoration of Blackstone, here is the remarkable story my dad told me.)
He explained how in the middle of the show Blackstone had called for several people to join him onstage, including my dad! My dad stood in line with a row of volunteers as Blackstone walked back and forth across the stage, his voice booming to the far corners of the room. Over the course of several minutes, the legendary magician demonstrated the skills of a master pickpocket.
Coins, pens, watches, neckties, belts, wallets, and more were all magically removed from the volunteers’ pockets and - to their surprise - returned with a flourish by Blackstone himself. But! My dad explained how Blackstone had kept him under his spell that night.
“You see, Mark,” my Dad explained, “As he was walking past me on the stage he looked right at me and whispered ‘The next time I walk past give me your watch!’ Then he just kept walking and talking like nothing happened.”
My dad didn’t want the show to fail so he quietly removed his watch and handed it to Blackstone as he crossed the stage. Moments later Blackstone dramatically turned to my father, winked in his direction, and said “And sir, here is your watch!” Everyone in the audience laughed in amazement and my dad returned to his seat.
That was one of the earliest memories I have of understanding what it was like to be a magician. And it was all thanks to the Bowlus.
When I was 8 years old, a mentalist named Craig Karges came to the Bowlus. I’d never seen a mentalist before but it was a life-changing moment. He performed feats so inexplicable that I was convinced he was the real deal. After the show, I somehow got the chance to say hello and he sent someone backstage just to retrieve a business card for me. I kept that card forever, even modeling my first business card off of his.
