The definition arrived in my life through a single paragraph in Pete McCabe’s Scripting Magic, and it has been taped to the inside cover of my practice notebook ever since. McCabe attributes it to Broadway Bound by Neil Simon, the most successful playwright of his era:
Somebody wants something, but they can’t get it.
That is drama. The entirety of it, reduced to seven words. And those seven words, once you understand them, transform every trick you perform from a demonstration into a story.
The Demonstration Problem
Before I understood drama, my performances were demonstrations. Clean demonstrations. Technically sound demonstrations. But demonstrations nonetheless.
Here is what a demonstration looks like. I take out a deck of cards. I have a card selected. I lose the card in the deck. I find it. The audience applauds because the card was found, which is objectively impressive.
Now here is what that same routine looks like with drama. I take out a deck of cards. I tell the audience that I am going to attempt something that I am not sure will work. I have a card selected and lost in the deck. I try to find it. My first attempt fails — I pull out the wrong card. The audience sees that this is not guaranteed. I try again, with growing uncertainty. I ask the spectator to concentrate harder. I close my eyes. I reach into the deck and pull out one card. I hold it up, face toward me, and look at it for a long moment. Then I turn it around.
It is their card.
The trick is the same. The method is the same. The outcome is the same. But the experience is completely different. In the first version, the audience watches a competent performer do something impressive. In the second version, the audience watches a person struggle with a genuine challenge and triumph against difficulty. The first creates admiration. The second creates emotion.
The difference is drama. Somebody — me — wants something — to find the card — but can’t get it — because it is lost in a shuffled deck and my abilities are uncertain.
Finding It in McCabe
McCabe illustrates the principle with the story of Cinderella, and the illustration is brilliant because it shows how the structure of “want but can’t get” operates as a recursive engine.
Cinderella wants a happy life, but her stepmother treats her badly. She wants to go to the ball, but her sisters destroy her dress. She goes to the ball and wants to stay with the Prince, but the magic expires at midnight. She wants to try on the slipper, but her stepmother locks her away. She escapes and is about to try on the slipper, but the slipper shatters.
Every time Cinderella gets close to what she wants, a new obstacle appears. Every obstacle is harder than the last. The audience’s investment grows with each obstacle because the gap between what the character wants and what the character can get keeps widening.
This is not just the structure of fairy tales. It is the structure of all compelling narrative. And it is the structure that is almost entirely absent from most magic performances.
Why Magicians Skip the Drama
The reason most magic performances lack drama is simple and structural: the performer already knows the outcome. You know you will find the card. You know the prediction will match. You know the coin will vanish. There is no uncertainty for you, and without uncertainty, there is no conflict, and without conflict, there is no drama.
But drama does not require actual uncertainty. It requires the appearance of uncertainty. It requires the audience to believe that the outcome is genuinely in doubt.
This is where acting meets scripting. You script the moments of difficulty. You script the failed attempts. You script the growing tension. And then you act those scripted moments with enough conviction that the audience believes them.
I resisted this for a long time. My consultant brain rebelled against the idea of pretending to fail. Why would I show the audience a wrong card? Why would I create the impression that I might not succeed? Is that not damaging to my credibility?
The answer, which I learned through performance, is exactly the opposite. The audience does not lose confidence when you appear to struggle. They gain investment. They are now emotionally engaged in the outcome because the outcome is uncertain. And when you finally succeed — when the card is found, when the prediction matches, when the impossible thing happens — the triumph is shared. The audience celebrates with you because they experienced the difficulty with you.
The Three Elements
McCabe breaks the drama formula into three questions:
Who wants something? What do they want? Why can’t they get it?
These seem simple. They are not. Each question opens into a range of possibilities that most performers never explore.
The “who” can be the magician. This is the most common choice — I want to find your card, but I cannot because it is lost in the deck. But the “who” can also be the spectator. The spectator wants to keep their card safe from me, but cannot because I keep finding it despite their best efforts. Or the “who” can even be an object. McCabe describes a torn piece of paper that wants to be whole — the paper restores itself because it desires wholeness. The personification of objects has a mixed history in magic, but when done with genuine conviction, it can be extraordinarily effective.
The “what they want” must matter. If the goal is trivial, the drama is trivial. “I want to find your card” is adequate but not compelling. “I want to prove to you that something impossible is possible” is better. “I want to show you something I cannot fully explain, something that has haunted me since I first experienced it” is better still. The more meaningful the goal, the more the audience cares whether it is achieved.
The “why they can’t get it” must be genuine. This is where most performers fail. The obstacle must feel real, not manufactured. A shuffled deck is a genuine obstacle — the card really is lost. An apparently failed attempt is a genuine obstacle if the performer sells it with conviction. But a contrived obstacle — “I will now make this harder by blindfolding myself” — often feels like a stunt rather than a story.
Applying This to My Mentalism
The most dramatic transformation in my performing came when I applied this framework to my mentalism pieces. Mentalism, by its nature, has enormous dramatic potential. Someone is thinking of something, and I am attempting to perceive their thought. This is inherently dramatic because the outcome is genuinely uncertain — or at least should feel genuinely uncertain.
Before discovering drama, my mentalism presentations were procedural. “Think of something. Concentrate. I am receiving an impression. Your thought is X.” Clean. Efficient. Impressive. But emotionally flat. There was no struggle, no uncertainty, no moment where the audience thought I might fail.
After discovering drama, my mentalism presentations became stories. “I am going to try to perceive your thought. I want you to know that this does not always work. Sometimes I get nothing. Sometimes I get fragments. I need your help — I need you to concentrate as clearly as you can, because the clearer your thought, the more I can perceive.”
This setup does several things. It establishes the goal — I want to read your thought. It establishes the obstacle — this might not work. And it creates investment — the spectator has a role, a responsibility, a stake in the outcome.
During the routine, I allow the process to unfold with genuine uncertainty. I receive impressions. Some are vague. I ask for help. I narrow down. The audience watches someone attempting something difficult, not someone executing a guaranteed procedure.
When the revelation comes, when I name the thought correctly, the reaction is not just “that was impressive.” It is “he actually did it.” The word “actually” is the key. It implies that the outcome was in doubt, that success was not guaranteed, that the drama was real.
I perform at corporate keynotes across Austria — in Vienna, Graz, Salzburg, Innsbruck — and the addition of dramatic structure to my mentalism pieces has produced consistently stronger audience reactions than any technical improvement I have ever made. The reactions are not just bigger. They are different in kind. Instead of polite amazement, I get genuine emotional responses. Gasps. Laughter. People grabbing the arm of the person next to them. These are the reactions that come from drama, not from technique.
The Practice of Writing Drama
I now write dramatic structure into every routine before I rehearse it. The process is straightforward.
For each routine, I answer McCabe’s three questions in writing. Who wants something? What do they want? Why can they not get it?
Then I identify the moments of difficulty — the points in the routine where the obstacle is most visible, where the audience should feel the most uncertainty about the outcome.
Then I script those moments. Not with elaborate dialogue. With simple, honest language that communicates the struggle. “This is the part that does not always work.” “I am not getting anything yet.” “Wait — something is forming.”
Then I rehearse those moments with as much care as I rehearse the technical elements of the routine. Because the dramatic moments are the moments the audience will remember. They will not remember the procedure. They will remember the struggle and the triumph.
The Universal Application
Here is what makes Neil Simon’s definition so powerful: it applies to everything. Not just magic. Every compelling presentation, every effective sales pitch, every engaging keynote, every memorable conversation follows the same structure. Somebody wants something but cannot get it.
As a strategy consultant, I recognize this structure in every business case study I have ever analyzed. The company wants to enter a new market but cannot because of regulatory barriers. The startup wants to scale but cannot because of funding constraints. The executive wants to lead a transformation but cannot because of organizational resistance.
Drama is not a theatrical technique. It is a human fundamental. We are wired to engage with stories of want and obstacle. When those stories are absent, we disengage. When they are present, we lean in.
Magic without drama is a puzzle. Magic with drama is an experience. And the difference between the two is seven words, written by Neil Simon in a play about family and ambition:
Somebody wants something, but they can’t get it.
I have those seven words taped to the inside cover of my practice notebook. They are the first thing I see when I open it. And every routine I work on begins with the question: where is the drama?
If I cannot find it, the routine is not ready. No matter how clean the method. No matter how impressive the effect. Without drama, it is a demonstration. And demonstrations are forgotten by the time the audience reaches the parking lot.
Drama stays.