The trusted friend method solved a real problem. It gave me the audience’s-eye view of my performances. But after using it at a dozen events, I noticed a limitation. Thomas was excellent at reporting what he observed — the audience checked out at minute twelve, a whispered exchange suggested confusion, the energy dipped in the middle and surged at the end.
What he could not do was tell me why any of those things happened, or what to do about them.
This is not a criticism of Thomas. He is not a performer. Observation without interpretation only gets you halfway. Knowing that the audience disengaged tells you where the problem is. It does not tell you whether the problem is structural, tonal, or physical. Without knowing the cause, the fix is guesswork.
The difference between a trusted friend and a director is the difference between a patient describing symptoms and a doctor diagnosing the condition.
How Theatre Does It
Dan Harlan, in his lecture on magic as theatre — Tarbell Lesson 83 — lays out the seven stages of the theatrical rehearsal process. It is a progression that begins with a read-through of the script, moves through blocking and business, advances to off-script practice, then full rehearsals, and finally dress rehearsals. At every stage, there is a director. Someone sitting where the audience sits, watching, taking notes, and guiding the performer toward the performance that serves the audience rather than the performer’s internal experience.
Harlan makes a distinction that I found critical: practice is not rehearsal. Practice is perfecting individual elements — moves, lines, timing. You can stop and start. You can repeat a section ten times. Rehearsal is running the complete performance, start to finish, without stopping, and then receiving notes at the end.
The notes are the key. In theatre, the director watches the rehearsal and then delivers structured feedback. Not “I liked the second act” or “the energy felt off.” Specific, actionable, technically informed notes: “Your blocking in scene three puts you upstage of the action — move two steps downstage so the audience can see your face during the reveal.” “The transition between scene four and five has dead time — you need to find a way to bridge those beats.” “Your vocal energy drops in the monologue after the fight scene — you are still carrying the physical tension in your voice instead of shifting emotional register.”
This is fundamentally different from casual feedback. It comes from someone who understands the craft, who has a framework for evaluating performance, and who can translate observations into specific, executable adjustments.
Reading Harlan’s description, I realized that what I had been doing with Thomas was asking a layperson to serve as an audience proxy. What I needed, at least occasionally, was someone who could serve as a director.
Working with Adam
The closest thing to a director in my performing life is Adam Wilber.
Adam and I co-founded Vulpine Creations together. We met when I invited him to speak at Xcite Festival, the event I was hosting in London. We hit it off, started collaborating, and eventually built a company together. That company meant both of us needed to perform, design effects, and understand the craft at a serious level.
What developed organically was a mutual directing relationship. Adam watches my material. I watch his. We give each other notes. And because we both understand the craft — the principles, the structure, the audience psychology — our notes have a specificity that casual feedback lacks.
The first time Adam functioned as my director was during the development of a keynote I was building for a conference in Salzburg. I ran the full set for him over a video call — standing in my living room, performing to a laptop camera as if it were an audience of two hundred. Not ideal conditions, but workable.
Adam watched the entire thirty-minute set without interruption. When I finished, he did not say, “That was great” or “I liked it.” He said, “I have six notes. Do you want them now or in writing?”
I asked for them now.
“Note one. Your opening hook is strong but you are delivering it while walking to your table. The walk dilutes the words. Stand still, deliver the hook, then walk. Movement and speech should not compete for the audience’s attention in the first thirty seconds.”
“Note two. The transition from the first effect to the business framework section needs a bridge. Right now you are ending the effect, pausing, and then starting the business content as if it is a new segment. The audience needs to feel that the effect leads into the framework, not that the framework follows the effect. Find a connective phrase or moment that links them.”
“Note three. Your second effect has a reveal that you are burying in a sentence. The reveal is the point. It should be isolated. Give it its own beat. Strip away the words around it and let the moment land in silence.”
“Note four. The audience participation section runs long. You are spending too much time on the selection process and not enough on the interaction. Cut the selection down to ten seconds — ‘You, in the blue shirt, stand up’ — and spend the extra time on the actual interaction, which is what the audience is there for.”
“Note five. Your closer has a physical punctuation point — a gesture you make at the moment of the final reveal — that is too small for a room of two hundred. Scale it up. The people in the back row need to see that gesture as clearly as the people in the front row.”
“Note six. You need a button. Right now, the show ends on the reveal, but there is no moment that says ‘this is over, applaud now.’ Give the audience a clear ending — a final statement, a bow, a change in your posture — that signals the conclusion.”
Six notes. Each one specific. Each one actionable. Each one informed by an understanding of performance craft that goes beyond observation into diagnosis. This was not a trusted friend telling me what the audience experienced. This was a director telling me how to shape the audience’s experience.
The Framework Behind the Notes
What makes a director’s notes different from casual feedback is the framework behind them. A director does not just watch and react. A director watches through a lens — a set of principles, categories, and priorities that organize their observations.
When Thomas told me the audience disengaged at minute twelve, he was reporting a symptom. When Adam told me the transition needed a bridge, he was diagnosing the cause. Both pieces of information are valuable. But the diagnosis is more directly actionable.
This does not mean you need a professional director. It means you need someone who has studied performance deeply enough to have internalized a framework for evaluating it.
How We Work Together
Adam and I have developed a simple rhythm for our mutual directing work.
When one of us is developing new material or refining an existing set, we schedule a run-through. The performer runs the full set, start to finish, without stopping. The director watches, takes notes, and holds all feedback until the end.
The no-interruption rule is important. A director does not stop a rehearsal to give notes. They watch the whole thing, because a problem in minute five might resolve itself in minute fifteen. You cannot evaluate the architecture of a performance by looking at individual bricks.
After the run-through, notes are delivered from most important to least important. The performer listens, takes notes, asks clarifying questions, and does not argue. After twenty-four hours to process, we discuss. The performer can push back, ask for alternatives, or explain context. Some notes survive unchanged. Others are modified. A few are discarded. But all have been considered rather than reflexively dismissed.
The Difference It Makes
I can trace specific improvements in my performing to specific notes from Adam, and he has told me the same is true in reverse.
The note about standing still during the opening hook changed my first thirty seconds permanently. I now plant my feet, deliver the hook, let it land, and only then begin to move. The audience’s attention is captured before my body gives them anything else to process. A small change, suggested in one sentence, that improved every show that followed.
The note about isolating the reveal in my second effect led me to restructure the entire patter around that moment. I stripped away two sentences that were cushioning the reveal, added a two-second pause before it, and delivered the reveal as a standalone statement. The audience reaction to that effect measurably increased — longer gasps, more visible surprise, more whispered commentary afterward.
The note about adding a button to my closer solved a problem I had not been able to name. I knew my endings sometimes felt ambiguous — the audience was not sure whether to applaud or wait for more. Adding a clear physical and verbal endpoint gave them permission to react, and the applause became immediate and confident rather than hesitant and building.
None of these improvements would have come from video review alone. None of them would have come from casual audience feedback. They came from someone who understands the craft, who watched with a framework, and who could translate observation into prescription.
Finding Your Director
Not everyone has an Adam Wilber. But most performers have access to someone further along the path — a more experienced performer, a speaking coach, a theatre person who understands blocking and pacing.
The key qualities are not professional credentials. They are the ability to watch with a framework, the willingness to be specific, and the courage to tell you the truth.
You do not need a director for every show. You need a director for the development process — building new material, refining existing material, pushing into new territory. Once the material is shaped, your own director’s eye and the trusted friend method can maintain it. But for the architectural work of turning raw performance into polished show, the director’s notes approach is irreplaceable.
One person, sitting where the audience sits, watching with knowledge and care, telling you what they saw with precision and honesty. That is the backbone of theatre. And it should be the backbone of magic.