I have a confession that will sound strange coming from someone who runs a magic company: for the first couple of years of performing, I had no systematic way of evaluating my own work. I would finish a show, and my assessment would be based entirely on feeling. Did it feel good? Did the audience seem to enjoy it? Were there any obvious disasters?
Feeling is not nothing. Intuition, when it is calibrated by experience, can be remarkably accurate. But feeling is also unreliable, biased by ego, distorted by adrenaline, and incapable of diagnosing specific problems. “Something felt off in the middle” is not actionable feedback. You need to know what was off, why it was off, and how to fix it.
That is what Fitzkee’s act analysis checklist provides. In Showmanship for Magicians, he lays out a systematic set of diagnostic questions that can be applied to any performance — your own or someone else’s. When I first discovered them, I adapted them into fourteen specific questions that I now apply to every show I do and every performance I study.
They function like a performance MRI. Each question illuminates a different structural element. Together, they reveal the complete picture.
Question One: Does the Act Have Unity?
This is Fitzkee’s first principle and my first diagnostic question. Is this act bound together by a connecting thread from beginning to end, or is it a disconnected collection of individual pieces?
Unity can come from many sources: a consistent character, a single type of material, a theme, an emotional tone, a running story. The source matters less than the presence. Without unity, the audience experiences a series of moments rather than a single journey.
I started asking this question of my own work and discovered something uncomfortable: my early shows had no unity at all. They were playlists. Good tricks, well-performed, arranged in an order that made logistical sense but no narrative sense. Adding a unifying thread — in my case, the theme of perception and how easily it is manipulated — transformed the same material into something that felt cohesive.
Question Two: Is There a Clear Beginning, Development, and Climax?
Every act, and ideally every trick within the act, should have three distinguishable phases. Does the audience know when it is starting? Does the middle build toward something? Does the end arrive with impact?
I have watched countless magic performances — both live and on video — where the middle section is indistinguishable from the beginning. Nothing develops. Energy stays flat. Tricks happen at the same emotional volume from start to finish. The climax, when it arrives, does not feel like a peak because there has been no climb.
When I apply this question to my own work, I look for the staircase that Fitzkee describes: always going forward and always rising. If I cannot identify a clear upward trajectory, the structure needs work.
Question Three: Does Every Element Contribute Lift?
This is the ruthless question. For every trick, every story, every bit of audience interaction, every moment in the show: does it carry the act higher and closer to the climax? If it does not, it needs to be cut or replaced, regardless of how good it is in isolation.
Fitzkee’s language is blunt here: “No matter how much you love the trick, no matter how well you can do it… throw it out permanently” if it does not contribute lift. I have learned to apply this without mercy, though it took time. Letting go of material you love because it does not serve the show is one of the hardest disciplines in performance.
Question Four: Are There Delays, Fumblings, or Dead Time?
Fitzkee identifies this as one of the three cardinal faults that destroy entertainment value. Dead time is any moment where nothing meaningful is happening — searching for props, resetting between effects, walking to a table without speaking, waiting for a volunteer to get situated.
When I video-record my performances and review them, dead time is the first thing I look for. It is shocking how much of it exists in a typical show and how invisible it is from the performer’s perspective. A five-second gap between tricks feels like nothing when you are on stage. Watching the video, those five seconds feel like an eternity.
The solution is not to rush. It is to fill. Dead time becomes process time when you are talking, engaging, building. Dan Harlan makes this distinction clearly: process is the necessary steps made interesting through interaction, character, and script. Dead time is anything that does not make sense to the audience, no matter how active you are on stage.
Question Five: Are There Excess Movements or Lines?
The second of Fitzkee’s three faults. Is there anything in the act that does not advance toward the climax? Extra patter that fills time but adds nothing? Movements that look busy but serve no purpose? Tricks that are technically impressive but emotionally redundant?
This question pairs with Fitzkee’s golden rule of showmanship: “Not too much; but just a bit too little.” Economy means exactly enough. Every word earns its place. Every movement has a purpose. If you can cut something and the show gets better — or even stays the same — it should have been cut.
Question Six: Are There Blind By-Paths or Diversions?
The third fault. Does the act ever wander off course? Does a story lead somewhere that is not the main point? Does an audience interaction derail the forward momentum? Does a trick introduce an idea that is never resolved?
I catch this in my own work most often during audience interactions. A volunteer says something unexpected, I follow the tangent because it gets a laugh, and suddenly the show has drifted from its intended path. The laugh was real. The diversion was genuine entertainment. But it broke the momentum toward the climax, and the cost was greater than the benefit.
Question Seven: Is the Timing Deliberate?
Fitzkee defines timing as the deliberate control of tempo to accomplish a definite objective unmistakably. Does the performance slow down at the right moments? Does it speed up when energy is needed? Is the pace controlled or accidental?
The most common timing mistake I see — and make — is failing to slow down before a climax. Fitzkee prescribes a gradual deceleration as you approach the punch: pause almost twice as long just before the phrase establishing a point. The pause creates anticipation. Without it, the climax arrives and departs before the audience has time to register its importance.
Question Eight: Is the Pointing Clear?
Pointing is Fitzkee’s term for directing all emphasis toward a specific objective. Does the audience know what they should be paying attention to at every moment? Is each trick’s climax unmistakably indicated?
Poor pointing is one of the most common problems in amateur magic. The performer knows the climactic moment. The audience does not. The card is revealed, but the performer’s body language does not change. The prediction is opened, but there is no pause, no build, no moment of “here it is.” The effect happens, and the audience is not sure if it was the big moment or a setup for something bigger.
Clear pointing means that the audience never has to wonder whether they should react. They know. Because everything — your words, your body language, your eye contact, the shift in your energy — tells them “This is it.”
Question Nine: Does the Act Appeal to Instinct or Only to Intellect?
Fitzkee makes a powerful distinction between instinct appeals and mind appeals. Instinct appeals — rhythm, beauty, skill, humor, surprise, emotion — provoke involuntary responses. Mind appeals — puzzlement, bewilderment, intellectual surprise — require thought.
Most magic acts rely entirely on mind appeals. The climax offers bewilderment: “How did that happen?” But bewilderment requires thinking, and thinking delays the emotional response. The strongest moments in entertainment combine instinct appeals — visual beauty, rhythmic precision, emotional connection, humor — with the magical surprise.
When I evaluate a show, I ask: at the climactic moment, is the audience thinking or feeling? If they are only thinking, the punch will be weaker than it could be. The best moments are the ones where the audience feels before they think.
Question Ten: Is the Performer Selling Themselves or Selling Tricks?
Fitzkee’s most forceful argument: you have only one thing to do in front of an audience, and that is to sell yourself. If the audience wants the tricks, any magician will do. If they want you, only you will do.
This question is the one I find hardest to answer honestly. When I watch my own performances, I sometimes catch myself disappearing behind the effects. The trick becomes the star. My personality recedes. The audience watches magic being done rather than watching me doing magic. The distinction is subtle but crucial.
Question Eleven: Is the Material Appropriate for This Audience?
Fitzkee categorized audiences extensively — from single individuals to children’s groups to drinking audiences to mixed adults of exceptional intelligence — and insisted that the performer’s obligation is to reach the audience within their world and experience.
Before every corporate event, every keynote, every private show, I ask: who is in this room? What do they know? What do they care about? What language do they use? What references will land? An effect that devastates a tech conference may fall flat at a family celebration. Not because it is a bad effect, but because it is the wrong effect for this room.
Question Twelve: Are the Props and Presentation Modern?
Fitzkee was savage about dated apparatus. Red boxes with Chinese dragons. Crystal cabinets on ornate tables. Props that scream “magic show” before a word is spoken. His argument: keep your presentation in the manner of the present fashion, just as you would avoid dated clothing.
I apply this question broadly. Does anything about my show look like it belongs in a different era? Does any prop immediately signal “magic trick” to the audience? Does the language I use sound contemporary, or does it carry the residue of old-fashioned magician patter?
Question Thirteen: Does the Act Build to a Clear Finish?
Fitzkee’s three-step applause formula: show you are approaching the end, indicate the end, and clearly point out that you have finished. Does the audience know when to applaud? Or does the show just… stop?
I have watched performances where the audience was not sure the show was over. The performer finished their last trick, stood there, and the room was silent — not because the show was bad, but because the ending was not signaled. No build. No climactic moment. No clear physical gesture that said “done.”
Question Fourteen: Would the Audience Want to See More?
Fitzkee’s ultimate standard: always leave them wanting more. If they have not had enough, they will applaud for more. If they have had too much, they will not want you back.
This question can only be answered honestly after the fact, and it requires paying attention to the audience’s energy at the end. Are they leaning forward or checking their phones? Are they applauding with enthusiasm or with polite obligation? Would they be disappointed if you did one more piece, or relieved?
Putting It All Together
I keep these fourteen questions in a note on my phone. After every performance, before I do anything else, I sit down — usually in a hotel room, usually too wired to sleep — and answer each one. Not with vague impressions. With specific observations. “Question Four: There was dead time between the second and third effect — approximately eight seconds where I was resetting and the audience had nothing to engage with. Solution: bridge with a story or observation.”
The specificity is what makes the system work. Feeling tells you something was wrong. The checklist tells you what, where, and how to fix it.
Fitzkee designed these diagnostic principles more than eighty years ago. They were aimed at nightclub and vaudeville performers in an era of live entertainment that has largely vanished. But the principles underneath are timeless because they are not about magic. They are about how human beings experience live performance. Unity. Development. Economy. Timing. Audience connection. Clear communication.
Every performance is a data point. The checklist turns that data into insight. And insight, applied systematically, becomes growth.
That is what a performance MRI looks like. Fourteen questions. Honest answers. And the discipline to change what is not working, even when it means cutting material you love.