Magic takes center stage on Saturday.
Folks attending this weekendβs Stars of Magic show will be whisked away by the unexplained talents of 13 magic acts.
The 32nd magic show is produced by The Society of American Magiciansβ local chapter, Assembly #136. The club is a nonprofit, made up entirely of volunteers. The Stars of Magic show acts as a club fundraiser, board member and magician Norm Marini says.
What started out with just a handful of acts in the back of a restaurant on Speedway Boulevard decades ago has since blossomed into a 13-act show at the Temple of Music and Art.
β(Stars of Magic) was started by a group of guys that thought it would be a good idea to do a public show,β Marini says. βIt motivated people to put acts together.β
βNo other club does what we do,β he says.
The show will feature more than a dozen magic acts from Tucson. Many of the magicians have performed in worldwide shows, casinos in Las Vegas, cruises and resorts.
βOver the years, weβve been able to cultivate new members to put new acts together,β Marini says. βItβs gotten bigger.β
Attendees can expect to see anything from close-up card tricks to full-blown illusions, Marini says.
The lineup includes Marini himself, in addition to John Shryock & Mari Lynn, who have decades of magic experience, and George Franzen, who has performed nationwide and in Tokyo and Hong Kong and once owned bar and theater The Magic Place in New York.
Other folks include Hiro, who has won the local chapterβs Stage Magician of the Year contest twice, and Valerie Spell, a magician who works for Raytheon and βhopes to inspire other girls to break gender stereotypes of predominately male fields,β according to the Stars of Magic website.
