There was a point in a mentalism piece I used to perform where I would bring a volunteer on stage and say something like this:
“Okay, so what I’d like you to do is take this envelope — don’t worry, it’s just a regular envelope, nothing weird about it — and I want you to hold it in your left hand, or actually either hand is fine, whichever is comfortable, and then when I ask you to, I’d like you to open the envelope, but don’t open it yet, just hold it for now, and when I give you the signal — I’ll tell you when — go ahead and open it and read what’s inside, but out loud so everyone can hear you. Okay? Does that make sense?”
I counted those words once. Ninety-three. Ninety-three words to communicate an instruction that could be delivered in twelve: “Hold this envelope. When I say go, read what’s inside.”
That ninety-three-word version was not just verbose. It was actively damaging the performance. Every unnecessary word was a tiny leak in the dramatic pressure I had spent the previous three minutes building. By the time the volunteer actually opened the envelope, half the tension had drained out of the room.
I did not see this until I started applying a framework from Ken Weber’s Maximum Entertainment that fundamentally changed how I think about every word I say on stage.
The Big Three and the Unwanted Fourth
Weber identifies three reactions that every moment of your performance should target. He calls them the Big Three: rapt attention, laughter, and astonishment. Every word you say, every action you take, should be producing one of these three reactions in your audience. If something is not making them lean forward with fascination, laugh, or gasp at the impossible, then it is not earning its place in your show.
But Weber acknowledges a fourth category, and he frames it almost reluctantly, the way a doctor might acknowledge a necessary but unpleasant procedure. That fourth category is necessary instructions and explanations. The stuff you have to say to make the effect work. The procedural language. The “hold this here” and “remember that card” and “when I count to three.”
The key word is “necessary.” Not “convenient.” Not “thorough.” Not “safe.” Necessary.
Weber is adamant that this fourth category should be minimized to the absolute thinnest possible layer. Instructions are not entertainment. They do not produce rapt attention, laughter, or astonishment. They are the price you pay for involving the audience in the effect. And like any price, you want to pay as little as possible.
The Over-Explanation Trap
Here is why most performers — and I very much include my former self — over-explain. It comes from a place of fear.
When you are on stage and you need a volunteer to do something specific, you are terrified that they will do it wrong. You are terrified that they will open the envelope too early, or pick the wrong card, or stand in the wrong spot, or say the wrong thing. And so you hedge. You add qualifiers. You repeat yourself. You explain the instruction, then explain why you gave the instruction, then give the instruction again in different words just to make sure.
This is the performer’s anxiety masquerading as thoroughness.
I recognized this in myself at a corporate event in Linz. I was recording my performances by then — something I had started doing as part of my director’s eye practice — and when I watched the footage, I was struck by how much time I spent explaining things to volunteers. Not performing. Not building tension. Not being entertaining. Just… explaining. Setting up. Clarifying. Over-clarifying.
In one piece, I timed it. Out of a six-minute routine, nearly two full minutes were instructions. Two minutes where the audience was not experiencing rapt attention, laughter, or astonishment. Two minutes of administrative overhead.
That is a third of the routine. A third of the time, I was not entertaining anyone. I was filing paperwork.
The Stripping Exercise
After that realization, I developed an exercise that I now do with every scripted piece. I call it “the strip.” It works like this.
I take my script and I highlight every line that is an instruction or explanation. Every “what I’d like you to do,” every “go ahead and,” every “the reason I’m asking you to do this is.” All of it gets highlighted.
Then I try to cut each instruction in half. Not rephrase it. Cut it. If the instruction is twenty words, I look for ten. If it is ten, I look for five. If it is five, I ask whether I need it at all.
Then I try to cut it in half again.
The goal is not elegance. The goal is not poetry. The goal is minimum viable instruction — the fewest possible words that will produce the correct action from the volunteer.
“Take this envelope, hold it in your left hand, and when I snap my fingers, open it and read what you see out loud” becomes “Hold this. When I snap, read what’s inside. Loud enough for everyone.”
Fourteen words. Down from ninety-three.
But here is the part that surprised me. When I started delivering these stripped-down instructions in actual performances, the volunteers did not get confused. They did not need the extra explanation. They did not need the qualifiers and the reassurances and the “don’t worry, it’s just a regular envelope.”
People are not stupid. They understand simple directions. When you say “hold this” and hand someone an envelope, they hold the envelope. When you say “read what’s inside,” they read what is inside. They do not need you to explain the concept of holding or the mechanics of reading. They are adults who have successfully opened envelopes before.
The over-explanation was never for them. It was for me. It was my anxiety, wearing a mask of helpfulness.
Where the Instruction Lives Matters
Beyond cutting the volume of instructions, I learned something else that made a significant difference: where you place instructions in the flow of a routine matters enormously.
The worst place for a block of instructions is right before a climax. If you have been building tension for three minutes and then stop to explain what the volunteer needs to do during the reveal, you have just punctured the balloon. All that accumulated dramatic pressure escapes through the hole your instructions punched in it.
The best place for instructions is at the beginning of a sequence, before the tension starts building. If the volunteer needs to do something during the climax, set it up early. Give the instruction when the energy is still conversational, when a brief procedural moment will not cost you anything. Then, when the climax arrives, the volunteer already knows what to do, and you can ride the tension straight through to the payoff without interruption.
I restructured several of my routines based on this principle. One mentalism piece used to have a moment where I would pause right before the reveal to tell the volunteer to turn over a card. Now I tell them at the beginning: “In a moment, I’m going to ask you to turn over that card. Don’t do it yet — wait until I tell you.” Then I build the routine, and when the moment comes, I just say “Now.” One word. The tension holds. The reveal lands.
That single word “now” replaced a twelve-word instruction that used to sit right on top of the climax like a wet blanket.
Turning Instructions into Entertainment
The real craft, though, is not just minimizing instructions. It is finding ways to make the instructions themselves entertaining. Turning the fourth category into one of the Big Three.
There are a few ways to do this.
You can make the instruction itself funny. “Hold this envelope. Don’t open it. Don’t eat it. Don’t use it to mail your taxes. Just hold it.” The instruction is delivered, and the audience laughs. You have turned a procedural moment into a comedy beat.
You can make the instruction create rapt attention by embedding it in a story or a moment of connection. “Years ago, I was at a conference in Vienna and someone showed me something that I have never been able to explain. They handed me an envelope — just like this one — and told me to hold it. Just hold it. And what happened next changed how I think about the impossible.” The volunteer is now holding the envelope, the instruction has been delivered, and the audience is leaning forward.
You can even make the instruction itself build toward astonishment by framing it as part of the impossibility. “I want you to hold this envelope above your head — high, so everyone can see it — because I want everyone to be absolutely certain that from this moment forward, nobody touches it except you.” Now the instruction serves double duty: it positions the volunteer correctly, and it sets up the impossibility of the effect.
In all three cases, the instruction is still there. The volunteer still knows what to do. But the instruction is no longer dead weight. It is pulling its weight in the performance.
The Consultant’s Instinct
I think one reason I struggled with this more than some performers might is my background in consulting. In consulting, you explain everything. You justify. You make sure the client understands the logic behind the recommendation. You show your work. Thoroughness is a virtue.
On stage, thoroughness is a vice.
The audience does not need to understand the logic behind your instructions. They do not need to know why you are asking the volunteer to hold the envelope in their left hand rather than their right. They do not need the rationale. They need the instruction, delivered cleanly and quickly, and then they need you to get back to the business of being entertaining.
This was a genuine mindset shift for me. In my professional life, leaving things unexplained feels irresponsible. On stage, explaining things that do not need explaining feels amateur. The contexts demand opposite approaches, and learning to switch between them was one of the quieter but more important adjustments I made as I grew as a performer.
The Ongoing Battle
I still catch myself over-explaining. It is a habit that retreats but never fully surrenders. Every time I introduce a new piece into my set, the first few performances will have too many words in the instruction segments. I know this. I expect it. And I have the strip exercise ready to cut them back after I review the recording.
The discipline is not perfection. The discipline is awareness. Knowing that your default is to over-explain, and building a systematic process for catching it, cutting it, and keeping it cut.
Every word that is not producing rapt attention, laughter, or astonishment is a word the audience has to sit through on the way to the good parts. Some of those words are necessary. Most of them are not. Your job — my job, every performer’s job — is to know the difference and have the courage to cut what does not earn its place.
Twelve words. Not ninety-three. The audience does not need your anxiety. They need the envelope, the snap, and the reveal.
Everything else is filler wearing a disguise.