5 Things Magicians Can Learn From Anna Deguzman’s AGT Act to Improve Their Magic
May also apply to other artforms
Anna DeGuzman recently appeared on America’s Got Talent and got 4 yes’s to potentially make it to the next round in the competition. Any act that makes it to the televised auditions is worth learning from and it also helps that we get to see the progression of this act over the last few years. Here are five applicable ways Anna has improved her act.
1. Always work on your act
What you see in this act was not how it started when Anna came up with the routine.
Anna first debuted this act on Penn & Teller’s Fool Us back in 2019, and she was probably working on it long before that time also. Over the years it’s undergone incremental changes that improved the presentation and magic. Moving certain moments around heightened the overall effect, such as naming the number after the card has been chosen instead of before in her Fool Us/Australia’s Got Talent performance. One of the bigger changes is finding the selection with both decks, instead of just one and using the other as a gag.
Work on this act isn’t over and I’m sure the next iteration will see more improvements, so look for those little changes you can make in your own routines.
2. Sprinkle more magic moments where you can
The barebones of the act is Anna finds a chosen card without touching the deck, using two decks.
She is then able to pad the routine out with as many magical moments and bits without diminishing the overall routine. Why take a deck of cards out when you can make it appear from a blank case. If you’re going to reveal a chosen card, make it count like Anna does with a Yo flourish ending with the card in her mouth.
Find things in your routine that can be done magically and work them in.
3. Collaborate and get help
Magicians often prefer to work alone, doing everything from scripting, prop building and even directing themselves.
When you’re presenting an act for television or any important audience, getting a second set of eyes is a must. This can come in the form of a director who would assess your act from a presentational and blocking point of view and provide advice to help it play for the audience you’re presenting to. Anna has worked with magic consultants, such as Daniel Garcia (who has consulted for David Blaine), which has the advantage of a director but with the aim of focusing on the impact of your magic.
Whether it’s your muggle mate or a magician, a second opinion will improve your act or reinforce your choices.
4. It’s okay to show off
Anna got into magic and fell in love with cardistry, the art of card flourishes, or to dumb it down - juggling with playing cards.
So any chance to show off your skills is one Anna makes sure to take in her act. Magic is probably the only artform where you have to hide your skill in order for it to work, so any opportunity to show off should be taken, if it fits your character. In Anna’s case it does and she puts two moments in where she gets to show off what she’s been practicing for over 5 years.
Audiences love a good card spring, add in a few cuts and they’ll be taking you to the casino, even if it doesn’t exactly correlate.
5. Make them remember you for you, not your magic
Being a female magician may automatically make Anna more memorable than most male magicians (myself included) but there are ways to make ourselves stand out.
Magicians love their suits and rightly so, but there are more colours other than black out there, we may not pull off pink like Anna does but we should look at improving our dress sense at the very least. Before Anna even performs any magic she talks to the judges and shows off her personality, making a quick joke about the stairs as she approaches them. It’s the moments inbetween the magic that allow us to show off our personality, provided we have one.
Find ways to inject yourself into the routine, whether it’s with your wit, dress sense or strange obsession with butterflies.
We may not have an act that is TV ready yet but it doesn’t mean we can’t take steps to make it ready. Artists toil for months and years on their craft so that when opportunity knocks, they have something to present. Don’t wait for a deadline to start improving. Improve so you can cross the line first when the race begins. Take one of these things and apply them to your act now.
Although I'm not a massive fan of BGT/AGT, I was really impressed by Anna's performance. Her energy was amazing, and the audience reactions (even if enhanced in post-production) showed that cardistry can be captivating when performed slowly! I also appreciated how she carefully blended the manipulation and magic elements of her act.
Thanks for the thoughtful analysis of Anna's performance, David.
Marty