Leah Orleans: Pushing Boundaries in Magic

Jonah Babins sits down with magician, circus performer, and entertainer Leah Orleans to discuss her unique journey in magic.

The post Leah Orleans: Pushing Boundaries in Magic appeared first on Discourse in Magic.

Episode Transcript

JOnah (00:02):
Hello my friends, and welcome to a brand new episode of Discourse in Magic.
My name is Jonah Bains, andwe are here with Leah Orleans.
Leah, how are you?

Leah Or;eans (00:09):
Hi, Jonah.
I'm excited to be here.

JOnah (00:11):
I am excited that you're here and we have so much to talk about, fresh off
the end of the Mystify Magic Convention.
But call this a hook andwe'll get there in a minute.
Let's start at the very beginning.
How did you get started in magic?

Leah Or;eans (00:29):
So, I'm actually not a magician.
Ooh, scandal.
I, I was raised by magicians.
So my dad is Danny Orleansand my mom is Jan Rose.
She's the resident host at theChicago Magic Lounge, and my dad
tours and travels doing mostly tradeshow magic and corporate magic.
And I was raised in magic.

(00:49):
I had Eugene Berger asessentially an uncle to me and
Max Maven on my speed dial.
And I was a kid of the.
Teen Magic Seminars and in the WorldMagic Seminars and the weekends,
and the Lance Burton Teen Weekendsand the SYM members and all of that.
And then as I got older, Ifound circus and I actually

(01:09):
turned into the circus world.
So I'm a professional circus performernow with the roots of magic behind me.
And yeah, it, it, it, I was able totake a lot of what I learned from
learning the theories of magic and theconcepts of magic and turn them into a
one woman comedy acrobatic circus show.

JOnah (01:30):
Fabulous.
And I have seen this showand it is incredible.
Thank you.
So excited to chat more about that.
Let's talk a littlemore about the journey.
You know, first of all, it'sobviously unique to have.
Two parents in the magic space.
And how did, like you becoming seriousabout circus happen and, you know, I
guess you had really supportive parents ofdoing that, you know, so I'd love to hear

(01:54):
about sort of how, how that went down.

Leah Or;eans (01:56):
Absolutely.
Yeah.
They were very supportive.
It, there was definitely a very strong,what I refer to it as a possibility
model, which is, and I'll, I'll saythat word again when we're talking about
mystify, but as a kid I could look upand see these women who looked like
me succeed in circus and whether thosewere my coaches or other performers

(02:17):
that I got to watch when I went to see acircus or a show or a variety art show.
And I got to point andsay, I could do that.
I can be that person, mom.
I wanna be that person.
And so there happened to be ayouth circus after school program
that I joined and that grew into.
A larger love for circus arts,which for me was really fun.

(02:40):
'cause I was a super physical kid.
I was into gymnastics,but I hated competing.
So the concept of being judged becausesome other girl had longer legs than me
was really like, not fun for my brain.
It didn't motivate me to do better.
It just made me sad.
So I really loved circus as an artform, and they were very supportive.
So they drove me to practicesand trainings and shows.

(03:03):
And how did,

JOnah (03:04):
how did those, like, initial opportunities to be in specifically
like shows and page shows?
Like how did that start coming about?

Leah Or;eans (03:12):
Yeah, definitely.
It, it was very it was interestingto kind of feel how it was possible.
Like, it, it became very possible andbeing different, made it possible.
And in circus, whatever trickyou have is a trick you earned.
You can't go buy a truck.

JOnah (03:30):
Mm.

Leah Or;eans (03:30):
And you're very, you're taken very seriously if you
can do hard stuff and if you cando different stuff very quickly
and you're unique in that way.
So as I found my own voice as someonewho likes to speak on stage too, that
really made me different and uniqueand able to work through that nicely.

JOnah (03:49):
And how did those opportunities start coming about?
Like, people just heard about you ordid you start applying for things?
Was there some, like acircus coming to town?
You know, like I, I think I'm reallyfamiliar with a lot of how magic
careers start, but I think circusmust be a little bit different.

Leah Or;eans (04:06):
I found the Renaissance Fair community, it was really
where I started an actual career.
I did gigs, you know, like you do yourprivate events and your parties where
you do contortion on a table while peoplesurf champagne, like things like that.
But I went to circus schooland I met a man that I worked
with for a very long time.
His name is Etan McKinley and we werepartners for about nine years and we
built a comedy acrobatic duo show.

(04:28):
We worked at Renaissance fairsand cruise ships and colleges.
So we built a full length showsimilar to how a magician would
build their 45 or 60 minute show.
Got it.
And we started working atRenaissance fairs that he had
prior connections with, so we wereworking some of the smaller ones.
And then as our show grew, wegot to work the bigger ones and

(04:48):
form relationships with affairsthat really can give you a full

JOnah (04:52):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (04:52):
You know, yearly career.

JOnah (04:54):
Yep.
And just to ask a like technical questionabout the business aspect, how did
those Renaissance Faires hear about you?
Was it through his relationships?
Were you like cold emailing?
Was it just word of mouth?
How was it happening?
So a very small

Leah Or;eans (05:06):
community.

JOnah (05:08):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (05:08):
I even, there's about 35 Renaissance fairs across the country, if
you're not familiar with how Faires work.
And most of them run fromsomewhere between three and
eight weeks out of the year.
Some of them run more or less,but that's kind of your average.
And they can range in.
A hundred people per day or20,000 people per day and they're

(05:31):
like outdoor amusement parks.
And a lot of the folks thatwork renaissance fairs work the
other Renaissance fairs, right.
So there's kind of this smallcommunity that tours across the
country together or independently.
So we're travels fast.
And when you're a new act and a goodact that's doing something different.
It was, it was not long until we gota call from a larger fair saying, Hey,

(05:53):
can you do an audition weekend for us?
You know, can you come in?

JOnah (05:56):
Cool.
And what about the colleges and cruises?
I know those are both agentsort of centric spaces.
Did did you get a college agent?
Did someone approach you?
How did that start coming about?

Leah Or;eans (06:06):
Yeah, ET n had a previous relationship with Don Casino.
Got it.
One of the largest agencies.
So we were able to plug backinto that pretty quickly.
I definitely have, you know, I'm veryaware and of the privilege of being
able to plug in pretty quickly, but wealso had a show that was ready for it.
The caliber of the show that we weredoing, the, the way that the show

(06:27):
traveled, the way that we knew how to packthings was we were ready for those calls.
Yeah.
So that we could say, yes, go in and doa great job immediately and keep moving.

JOnah (06:36):
Cool.
In the next direction.
And of those markets, I know thatyou still do lots of Ren Faires.
Do you still do the, any ofthe other two or not really?
Yeah,

Leah Or;eans (06:44):
I do pretty much the same.
Oh, cool.
I, I continued through Etti and I went ourseparate ways and I continued with a solo
show and I do renaissance fairs and cruiseships and occasionally a few colleges.
It's harder for me to book collegesnow because they book like two
months out and I book the rest ofmy year, almost a full year out.

(07:06):
So my college agent will call me andbe like, are you available this day?
And I'll say no a lot, but she'llkeep calling 'cause she's wonderful
and we have a great relationship.
And when it works out, it worksout and I get to go do a fun show.

JOnah (07:18):
So.
Cool.
Let's talk a little bit about the show.
I, I know you've had your handin many, but talking specifically
about the Tiny Girl big show.
Yeah.
I obviously saw it or versions oof it on social media or moments,
and then got a chance to see it atMagi Fest and it was stupendous.
It was a highlight act.

(07:39):
It was, thank you.
Fun and exciting and impossibleand oh emotional, you know,
and it was everything.
I'd love to hear a littlebit more about like, how, how
did that show come together?
How did it come to be?
Maybe like what inspired the differentways that you show up in that show?
'cause there's a lot of, obviously there'scircus things, but there's also things

(08:02):
that are like sort of designed to bea little bit cheeky, and then there's
things that are a little bit emotional.
Like how, how did thosepieces sort of come together?

Leah Or;eans (08:09):
Ah, that's a great question and I'm so excited to dive into that.
It was such a labor of love.
I was working in a partnership ina duo for so long, and I really
was ready to build my own thing.
And this show has been in theslow cooker for a very long time.
When I'm designing a piece of theater,whether that's magic show or a, a festival

(08:31):
or a my own show I want to change thestage picture every five to seven minutes.

JOnah (08:37):
Hmm.

Leah Or;eans (08:38):
It's extremely important to me.
I want, if you take a picture of thestage every five to seven minutes of the
hour, it should look visually different.
So I'm on a unicycle, I'm on atable, I have a kid on stage,
I am doing a thing with a whip.
I'm just standing theredoing standup and talking.
I am now upside down.
Like there's all these differentthings and that keeps it moving for me.

(09:00):
That's super important visually.
So that was kind of the first element.
And then.
It became character based andwho is my character on stage.
I was very used to working in a duo whereI was kind of the goofy, silly, dumb one.
And he was my straight man.
Yeah.
And now I didn't have a straight man,so if I was just goofy and silly and

(09:22):
dumb on stage alone, that would not fly.

JOnah (09:24):
Mm.

Leah Or;eans (09:25):
I did.
I wouldn't have enough status.
It would wouldn't track for a full hour.
It would be funny forthe first five minutes.
Right.
And then, then she's dumb.
And so I had to turn my character fromdumb to something else and I spent a lot
of time researching and reading, reading,reading, reading and reading about writing
and comedy and character development.

(09:46):
It's a bunch of books thatI really love on that.
And soaking up as much knowledge as I can.
First, letting that simmer andthen turning it into the product.
I also turned any elements ofmy character that were dumb
into elements that were evil.
Mm. I watched a lot ofNickelodeon female villains.

JOnah (10:06):
Oh, that's so interesting.

Leah Or;eans (10:07):
And how children's cartoons play female villains
because they're not too sexy.
They're not, you know, they're not sluttybecause it's a kid show, but they're
evil, so they threaten to do things likekill your pets or, you know what I mean?
Like the, their, theirthreats are humorous.

(10:28):
Yeah.
But still villainous.
So I leaned into a lot of that, and thatgave me status on stage as being a little
bit of a bad guy and a little like,oh, like, is she really, is she evil?
Is she me?
But like, she's not.
Mm-hmm.
She wants she because she's here to share.
And it's important to me to get theaudience to know who I am, what I love

(10:50):
in as detailed version as possiblewithin the first 15 minutes of the show.
And if they can attach themselvesto me emotionally as a person,
they could relate to me.
Through vulnerability and humor, thenI can do whatever I want after that.
Right?
'cause they've already decided thatthey like me, and then I can be silly or

(11:11):
goofy or a little sexy or do somethingsilly with a volunteer or something
ridiculous with my body skill-wise.
And they have a deeperunderstanding of who I am.
So there's a lot of theory.
I, I overthink all the things.
I mean,

JOnah (11:27):
it, it's, it, it actually gives me a really good picture.
I want to double click on acouple of things that you said.
The first is, you said reada lot of books on character.
Are there any of themthat you would recommend?

Leah Or;eans (11:38):
Oh, yeah.
Lemme pull up my audiblereally quick because I have,
I got a reading list for you.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, I'm really into, I'mreally into self-help books or
instructional books about writing.
The, there's two, the series, they're kindof, they, they're kind of a paired book.
It is How to write Funny.

JOnah (12:02):
Oh, that's a great title.

Leah Or;eans (12:03):
And then how to Write Funny Characters.

JOnah (12:07):
Awesome.

Leah Or;eans (12:07):
And they're by a man named Scott Dickers, and they're great.
And it teaches you why funnyworks and how funny works.
And the, it creates this, this conceptcalled funny filters that allow you to
take a, any concept and turn it into ajoke more or less by looking at what,
which filter would make the most sense.

(12:29):
It's all about structure.

JOnah (12:30):
Wow.

Leah Or;eans (12:31):
Yeah.

JOnah (12:32):
Okay.
That's a fantastic recommendation.
Thank you for that.
Mm-hmm.
Makes sense.
I wanna talk about another thing thatyou said here about, you know, in that
first 15 minutes, you want people tounderstand who I am and what I love.
I think, I mean, I can talk aboutmagic in general, but I'll just
talk about me specifically, whichis, it is hard to share you in.

(12:53):
An act, it is not an easy thing to do,and you have to figure out the right
ways to do it, that it is not corny,but you are able to give a piece of
yourself, you know, to, to the audience.
What kind of advice do you havefor magicians whose acts don't
share a lot of themselves in it?

Leah Or;eans (13:12):
The first piece of advice would be who's your audience?
Who are the people that are watching you?
Are they vacationers on a cruise shipfrom middle America who likely don't see
live entertainment regularly and probablyvote away differently than you do maybe?

(13:32):
Are they Renaissance Fairgoers, whoare millennial weirdos and weirdos who
ha will get all of your references?
All of you know, they'll, you'llbe able to dive deep about your
love for Caption America, andthey'll be right there with you.
Who's your audience?
Who are you doing this for?
And that tells you whatyou can share with them.

(13:53):
I, I ask myself all the timeif I'm doing a new gig, okay.
You know, when I was at MagiFest, for example, my audience
is a bunch of magicians.
So in my pre-show crowd work,I'm gonna make jokes about magic
because that's what they know.
Mm-hmm.
And that's what we have in common.
I can make some inside joke abouta double lift or a palm or, yeah.

(14:14):
Like I, I have a bit with anemotional baggage case and I, I pulled
out Josh Jane's particle system.

JOnah (14:21):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (14:22):
You know, I can't do that anywhere else.

JOnah (14:24):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (14:25):
So like, how can I, where can I attach myself to the audience?
But you have to know who your audience is.
I'll ask myself, if I'm going to sitat a cafe with three of my audience
members, what would we talk about?

JOnah (14:37):
Hmm.
It's really interesting.
'cause it helps with the what, likehow to figure out what the thing is
that you get to share and that youget to bridge that relationship with.
I wanna ask a little more on this,which is about the how so like, and
to get almost technical and you cansend this in whatever direction you

(14:58):
want, but I think magic tricks areoften like premise steps result.
Mm-hmm.
And the versions of people, of,of tricks in shows that often have
people talking about themselves,the premise is maybe a story.
Mm-hmm.
And that's like.
That's like most of thetime, the extent of it.

(15:20):
Yeah.
How, how would you like as that, aslike a bit of a brief, like how do you
think about injecting you into a show?
Like is it just like that the premiseis a story or are you doing something
different like, hey, saying like, Hey,here's five minutes of just standup
and authentic speaking and whatever.
Like how do you put the you into an act?

Leah Or;eans (15:42):
Yeah.
I think my inside out answer is,I actually make it not about me.
I ask myself what do I wantthem to feel when I was writing
my show for the first time?
And I do this all the time when I rewriteas well as I break down each scene of
the show or each routine, and I write howthe audience should feel in each beat.

(16:02):
So in my, like I do a paper hat,I do one magic trick in my show.
I do a paper hat tear with a kid, andit's probably the most sentimental
moment of the show, but it starts silly.
It starts silly and goofy andI give the kid a lot of room
to dance and be weird on stage.
And the weirder the kidare the funnier it is.

(16:24):
And I wanna, I wanna picka kid who's a little weird.
Mm-hmm.
And then at some point in the middle ofthe routine, I flip it and we get really
serious really fast and we start talkingabout anxiety and being overwhelmed.
And when I pick the right kid who'slike 14 or something, it's easy 'cause
all kids feel overwhelmed at 14.
Yeah.
So I think first, what do I wantthe audience to feel every beat.

(16:45):
So where is the suspense?
Where is the thinking?
Where, where are they actuallydoing the thinking versus where
are they just doing the watching?
Where is it eye candy?
You know, like my contortionroutine is just eye candy.
You're looking at me movein ridiculous positions.
I am barely saying jokes.
It's mostly just to music.
And it's a break for your brain.

(17:06):
You don't have to think, you don'thave to follow, you just have to
go, whoa, how is her leg there?
And that's it.
Like, it's just relaxing.
And then.
I'll get into some, another routine thatrequires more thought or more jokes.
And so that's, that's kind of where I, Iorient my compass, if that makes sense.

JOnah (17:24):
Awesome.
That is really, really helpful.
I think it's useful to, to know that the,the North Star really is not what you
want to say, but it's really about them.
How you want them to feel,what you want the result to be.
Because

Leah Or;eans (17:39):
I'm gonna say what I wanna say, it's my show.
You know, I'm the one up therewith a microphone for 45 minutes.
Like if something, I know thatI have control of the space, but
it's not about me, it's about them.
There's a great quote that I have up in myoffice that is, the audience didn't come
to see you, they came to see themselves.

JOnah (17:59):
Mm.

Leah Or;eans (18:02):
And the shows that you remember the most are the ones where you
felt like you were seen in that show.

JOnah (18:11):
Wow.
And who's that by?

Leah Or;eans (18:15):
Good question.
I don't know.
I'm gonna Google it.
Can't remember where I heard that.

(18:36):
This is, it looks like Julianne Moore.
Cool.
The actress.

JOnah (18:39):
Cool.
Love it.
Yeah.
This is really helpful and I thinkit gives a really good flavor
for having had seen your show.
And thank you for the recommendationson the books and, and the talking
about character and, and youknow, where you inject emotion.
I want to talk a little bitabout producing, you know, you've
produced your own show, you producedthe Whippy show, some retreats

(19:02):
a variety of different things.
I think I put on lots ofpublic shows and it is hard.
It's hard to sell tickets,it is hard to make money.
It is hard to make the show amazing,you know, like it is not easy.
It is certainly easier to show up at anevent, do your bit, and then go yeah.

(19:25):
Almost, you know, I mean, if peoplecan figure out how to make more dollars
from doing public events than power tothem, because it is not easy to do, but.
Producing and starring in a show wherepeople choose to come and see it.
Yeah.
Produces a vibe that is unmatchedfrom literally any other thing.

(19:48):
Yeah.
What sort of advice do you have for peoplethat you know, wanna produce their shows?
I just to give one other double click onthis, like, you know, I coach magicians
on the business and on getting gigsand things like that, and then one of
the things I hear most often is peoplesaying like, I want to put on a one man
show, you know, like, I wanna put onand those are hard, hard, hard to do.
What sort of advice do you havefor someone who's wanting to do

(20:10):
that and how to make it not onlypossible, but also maybe profitable?

Leah Or;eans (20:16):
Profitable,

JOnah (20:17):
yeah, maybe.
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (20:18):
And I, and I don't, yeah, I, I'm gonna sound like a
broken record, but know your audience.
You need to know your audience.
Where do they go?
Where did they eat dinner?
What I. Do they like todo in their free time?
Are they busy on the weekends?
Are they busy on the weekdays?
Do they have Wednesdays off becausethey have control of their own schedule?
Are they moms who have to deal with amillion kids and careers and their husband

(20:43):
not telling them what groceries they want?
Like what are their pain points?
What are their needs?
Who are you doing this for?
And then you can know where toadvertise to and where location-wise
you should even do the show.
You know, if I'm gonna do a show that'stailored towards millennials, I'm
not gonna do it in the suburbs whereeveryone needs a car to get there.
You know, it's like basic stuff like that.

(21:04):
Accessibility is huge.
And like I produced a show in New Jerseyand it was at this beautiful at, at
the New Jersey Performing Arts Center.
One of the coolest Hillary Clinton was,was doing a speech there the week before.
We were like, you know, and wewere doing this silly, ridiculous.

(21:24):
Like variety show, but like, it wasa venue that was so epically big
for our britches and and it worked.
But we could have gotten, you know,we barely, we, like, we scraped by,
we broke even it, we, we got it,we got a nice amount of profit, but
it could have, we didn't sell out.
And you know, I know that it's a spotthat's really difficult to get to for a

(21:51):
lot of New Yorkers or like, it's, it's aspot that is, we did it during a weekday
because we had to, and that's hard.
And a lot of our fan base wasavailable on weekends 'cause it was
our Refa fan base who always comesto see us on weekends, which means
they're working during the week.
So like that's a whole thing ofwhen are your people available?
What kind of people are there?

(22:12):
And learn marketing, you know?

JOnah (22:14):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (22:15):
Unless you have a massive fan base already.
You have hundreds of thousands offollowers that you know will just
show up because they love you andthey don't care about the details.
You need to learn marketing.

JOnah (22:26):
Yeah.
You gotta learn to run an ad or, you know,put out, get a, get the word out, however.
Right.

Leah Or;eans (22:31):
And why, what type of ad? Why does that ad matter?
And especially all socialmedia ads are like billboards.
People are driving by it.
Yeah.
60 miles an hour.
They're scrolling their phone fasterthan, than they see a, a billboard even.
So whatever you put as a socialmedia ad needs to be interesting
in the first two seconds Rules.

(22:52):
They're gonna scroll right past it.
I see so many ads thatare are interesting.
Seven to five, like fiveto seven seconds in.
Right.
Which is too late.
You know, it sounds like,

JOnah (23:02):
like a lot of the answers come down to screwing it up the first time.
Like, you know.
Yeah.
Not that, not that that's thebest recipe, but I think like.
You, you realize after you put somethingtogether, like we used to produce
a singles magic show in Toronto,and until we realized it's the only
freaking magic show where peoplebuy tickets one at a time which is

Leah Or;eans (23:25):
Oh, I see.
Like, like it's four singles.

JOnah (23:28):
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's a show for singlesto meet, meet each other.
Right.
That's gonna like kill your, wewould've never known until we start
running ads and realizing that ourcost per acquisition is so high.
'cause no one's buying a ticket for thefamily or for them and their five friends.
So like there's, there's no way that youknow this information until you do it.

(23:48):
And then you go, oh, got it.
And you have to like analyze theresults of something and realize, okay,
this was the wrong day of the week.
This is the wrong part of town.
This poster isn't exciting enough.
Right.
So it sounds like there is noobvious answer, which I knew.
But that it.
Comes with doing it and trying toget a little bit closer to figuring

(24:11):
out who your target market is.

Leah Or;eans (24:13):
Yeah.
And, and also being really realrealistic with yourself about
budget and why, why you're doing it.
You know, I, if your goal is to sellout and to get great video of you
performing in a theater, I, I produced aversion of The Tiny Girl big show at the
Zrich Magic Theater in St. Petersburg.
And I rented their, I forwardedtheir theater and I did two nights.

(24:37):
I did like a Thursday anda Friday or something.
No, it was, it was a Tuesday and aWednesday, because they were whatever.
And my goal was just to fill the theater.
I didn't, I wasn't trying tomake money, I was trying to
fill the theater, do an hour.
So I knew I could do an hour.
It was my first time doing a full hour.
It was back 2022 and I neededto get good video of it.

(25:02):
And that video got me cruise shipgigs and whatever gigs, you know.
So yeah, we sold tickets, but Ialso gave away a ton of tickets.

JOnah (25:09):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (25:10):
And I was like, I wanna break even.
I just wanna be able to paythem back what I paid them.
And that video is worth goal tome now, you know, five years later
it's still like, that math is awful.
Three years later,

JOnah (25:21):
whatever.
Yeah.
But I,

Leah Or;eans (25:22):
I can use that concept and that video forever.
So I invested in video people.
I invested in a really nice merchsetup to, and, and a banner,
a big banner in the lobby.
And we got all this footage that mademe look like I've been doing this
forever, even though it was my firstgo and I was able to break even.

(25:42):
And we made success, you know, big win.

JOnah (25:46):
Good advice to sort of figure out what the point of doing it is?
Yes.
I think, you know, one of the pieceof advice that I give to a lot of
the people that are asking aboutthe one man show is basically saying
like, well, if your goal is to makemoney, this is a hard route to go.
If you're not, if you don't already havea humongous following not impossible,
but a very, very hard route to go,and if it's for your fun or your

(26:10):
ego or for whatever, amazing, great.
Do it.
Don't expect it to be thething that pays the bills.
If you want it to be the thing thatpays the bills, then there's a lot of
marketing learning to do, and a lot ofyou know, there's a lot in front of you,
more than, much harder than booking a gigor two or five or something like that.

Leah Or;eans (26:28):
Definitely.
And if it's for the ego, having tofish and net your own audience is hard.
Hard, because that's gonna,that's gonna hit your ego.
You know, people, people sayingthey'll show up and then not show up.
That happens all the time.

JOnah (26:43):
Yes.
Yes.
Oh yeah.

Leah Or;eans (26:45):
That sounds like fun.
Yeah.
I'll, I'll tell my husband about it.
We'll come, will you?
No, you won't.
Sounds great.
Like I can tell by the time of yourvoice that you'll not, and you're
just saying that to be nice to me.
Thank you.

JOnah (26:53):
Sounds great.
You know, here's the link.
Right,

Leah Or;eans (26:56):
exactly.
You just,

JOnah (26:57):
I wanna tele, I wanted a little bit about brand.
I know it was maybe like this time lastyear, maybe a little earlier, you were
running like online brand sort of bootcamps and doing some branding events
and things for magicians and performers.
What are we getting wrong?
What are magicians and performersgetting wrong about branding most often?

Leah Or;eans (27:21):
I think that you don't understand what most laymen think
of when they hear the word magician.

JOnah (27:25):
Hmm.

Leah Or;eans (27:27):
I think that there's a massive misconception of what we know as
magicians, which are smart and crafty,and innovative people who love solving
problems and create impossible moments.
That's what I think of when I thinkof a magician, and it might be what a
lot of your listeners think of, mostpeople think of a man in a birthday
party suit, you know, like a partycity magician costume, pulling a bunny

(27:51):
outta a hat for a bunch of children.
That's what they think of.
They don't care how good you are.
Or they think of David Copperfield,or they think of that one
magician that they had at theircorporate event that one time.

JOnah (28:01):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (28:01):
You know, and there's this on, there's this,
what, what is the conceptionthat your audiences already have?
Is it a misconception?
How do you tell them no, it's notthat, it's actually this other thing.
And, and you know, what, what is yourability to whittle down who you are

(28:22):
and what you do into a one sentencetagline that then can communicate
what experience they're about to see?
I think there are some magiciansthat do that really well.
I think most magiciansdo it really poorly.
Someone like Lucy Darling, you know?

(28:43):
Yeah.
I'm looking at her Instagram right now.
And her bio is comedy DragMagic and Variety Arts, known
as the character Lucy Darling.
And that tells me, or her and herother account is known, known across
the world over her wit her charmand her exceptionally good hair.
Catch her live on tour,scheduled on the website.

(29:05):
Nowhere there.
Does it say magician?

JOnah (29:07):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (29:08):
It just doesn't say it.
Is she doing magic?
Yes, absolutely.
But you know, if I watch any ofher videos, I will see some magic.
I will see a lot of crowd work.
I will see that she's funny andinteresting and she's selling out
her shows all across the country.
You know, it's a great example of this.
And like stunt the word stunt performer,the word, like, what other words

(29:32):
can you use to describe yourself?
Not saying you have to throw the wordmagic out the window, but think of
yourself as more than this thing thatis already in our zeitgeist too deep.

JOnah (29:43):
So is is what you're trying to say?
Not necessarily to avoid the wordmagic, but like, you know, it's a,
it's a big fight to get someone'sto, to change what they think.
When the word magic comes up,uhhuh, and like that word is
almost like triggering, you know?
Yeah.
Like, absolutely.
It sends people somewhere thatwe may not want to send them.

Leah Or;eans (30:07):
I use the phrase It's charged.
It's charged with something else.
Charged.
Yeah.
The same way that certain piecesof music are charged, like if
you use the Game of Thrones themesong as your intro music, right?
Everyone's gonna be thinkingabout Game of Thrones.
It's too charged.
If your intention is to make a jokeabout Game of Thrones, then great.
Do the thing.
But.
Be aware of what is already charged.

(30:28):
And don't let, it's like egoasking in the way of that.
It's

JOnah (30:30):
like someone, what kind of music they do?
And you know, one of the wordsin what they do is metal.
Right.
You know, all of a sudden you're like, oh,oh, you know, I don't like metal music.
I don't, but maybe they're like,pump a punk folk, you know, metal.
And the medal is, is not necessarilythe part that is the most important.
And we, because it's charged,we sort of get sent with it.

(30:53):
What should people do instead?
Like, I, I think a lot of people,it's hard to point to a lot of other
things that make up who they are.
Like corporate comedymagician, like mm-hmm.

Leah Or;eans (31:08):
So I was just looking too at my, my dad's Instagram bio, which
I've been helping him with, and it's, itlooks, it's really great and I really love
his marketing right now, but it's, yeah.
Author, speaker, strolling,magician and trade show presenter.
He is all of those things.
Yeah.
He's mostly a magician.

JOnah (31:25):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (31:25):
He is an author.
He is a speaker, buthe's mostly a magician.
And when every gig he does, he does magicat, he's not just speaking somewhere.
Not to say that he couldn't, hetotally could kill that, but he
knows that his clients don't wanta man in a tuxedo with a top hat.
Right?

JOnah (31:43):
Yeah.
So he

Leah Or;eans (31:44):
kind of buries the word magician, in other words,
that make more sense for whatthey're actually looking for.
And I think that's so important thatall anyone marketing themselves,
whether they're an entertainer or apotter or a craftsperson or whatever,
you know what your client needs.

JOnah (32:02):
Mm-hmm.
What do

Leah Or;eans (32:02):
they need?
Who is your client?
What problem do they need to solve?
And then how can youfill that, go backwards?

JOnah (32:10):
Sounds like a lot of this work is like figuring out what they are and
what they need and then figuring outsort of what you think you are and like
trying to you know, join hands betweenthose two things in a way where like you
are still happy with what it says andit aligns with you, but ideally that it
checks the boxes that they're looking for.

Leah Or;eans (32:28):
Right.
And, and you don't lie aboutwho you are and what you do.
You just find the right fit andsometimes it's not the right fit.
Mm-hmm.
Like, I'm not a surly contortionist.
I should not be on stage for sevenand a half minutes doing a contortion
routine in a sparkle unitard.
Like, that's not my vibe.
Right.
Could I pull it off?
Maybe Would I be happy?

(32:49):
No.
Are there contortionists thatare much better suited for that?
Absolutely.
Can they get on a microphone for an hour?
No.

JOnah (32:57):
Mm-hmm.

Leah Or;eans (32:57):
So I'm not pitching myself as a, I don't, I barely pitch
myself as a contortionist in general.
Because most of the time that's whatpeople think when they hear too.
Right?
So now,

JOnah (33:07):
even though you do a lot of that, you don't want it to be a key term in
what you do because you don't want to begiven opportunities that you don't want.
Right.

Leah Or;eans (33:19):
And I also, that's another reason why I called my show The Tiny
Girl Big show and not Contortionist Leah.

JOnah (33:26):
Right.

Leah Or;eans (33:26):
And because if I don't wanna do Contortion or I'm injured, I
can still do the Tiny Girl big show witha different finale and not be off brand.
It's vague and I love it.
And people remember it.

JOnah (33:40):
Awesome.
That is really, really helpful.
What about in the same sort of brandingconversation, what about content?
You know, you've been very successfulwith making really great content
that has caught a lot of attentionand had your hand in things that
other people have done as well.
What are magicians specifically?

(34:01):
You know, getting wrongwith putting out content.

Leah Or;eans (34:06):
That's a complicated, wonderful question.
I think it also depends onwhat you're trying to do.
Are you trying to sell tickets?
Are you trying to become acontent creator or an influencer?
Someone like Jack Grady, Idon't know if you follow him.
Yeah, of course.
In Future, of course.
I know him very welland a personal friend.
And we got to meet at MagicFest Night Fangirl all over him.
It was great.
We both got to sharebeautiful experiences.

(34:27):
You're talking about

JOnah (34:27):
the ass Magician, correct?
The

Leah Or;eans (34:29):
as magician?
Yes.
I

JOnah (34:30):
went to Magic Camp with him.
A good friend as well.
He is a nice guy.
God,

Leah Or;eans (34:33):
I love him.
I think he's hilarious.
He does such a good job atmaking content for contents.
Like

JOnah (34:38):
Yeah,

Leah Or;eans (34:38):
he's not making content that is about him and his show.
He is making content that willbe funny to consume as content.
There is always a hookwithin the first two seconds.
You know, I have, I have twoballs and nothing in my ass.
Yeah, okay.
I'm gonna watch the video until the end.
Mm-hmm.
Like, I'm gonna watchwhat happens in your ass.
'cause you've told us thatthere's nothing in your ass right

(34:59):
now, but is that gonna change?
What's gonna, what's gonna be in your ass?
I'm gonna watch.
So creating a hook, really settingup a premise that then you have
to execute is super important.
The videos of mine that do the best,have the same concept where they start
with a premise or they start withsome sort of funny crowd interaction.
Or I'm on a unicycle with a whipdoing a joke about something and

(35:22):
everyone's like, what is you gonnado with a unicycle in that whip?
Like, where is that gonna go?
Asking that question,where is this gonna go?
If you don't know where it's gonnago, it's probably gonna do well
as a piece of content because youneed, 'cause now I wanna watch it
to the end to see where it goes.
And that's what the social media botsare looking at is retention time.

(35:44):
How many people watch this to the end?
How many people sharethis with someone else?
I mean, it's a crap shootto a certain extent.
Like there's some, of coursea bunch of stuff that I make.
I'm like, this is gonna be viral andno one watches it, or another thing
that gets posted and I'm like, whydo people care about that so much?
Cool.
Okay.
Like, whatever I am not also,this is like to be couched

(36:04):
with, I am not an influencer.
In terms of the technical term, yes, I donot make a large amount of my money off
of Instagram or Facebook or TikTok views.
I have some monetization and it's anice little boost, but it's not, I don't
spend all of my time making content,of course, for social media money.

(36:25):
But

JOnah (36:26):
I think I think a lot of the reason why you make content is a lot
of the reasons why, you know, magiciansask about making content, which is for
clout and for visibility and for, proof.
So I, I think sort of the advicethat you're giving resonates with
a good percentage of the audience.
'cause most of the magicians, atleast the ones that you know, I work

(36:46):
very closely with the content isto serve their performing business.
It's a

Leah Or;eans (36:51):
resume.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
It's a resume.
I want a booker to look at my Instagramaccount and go, oh, I should hire her.
She is loved.

JOnah (36:58):
Got it.
And is there,

Leah Or;eans (37:00):
and that's, and that works for me.

JOnah (37:01):
And do you think it needs to be basically like clips from a show?
Or can it be anything?
Like what, what do you findworks the best to check that box?

Leah Or;eans (37:12):
I think proof of you on stage being successful is very important.

JOnah (37:15):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (37:16):
Proof that there's a large audience watching you and loving you.
A lot of comments in the videogoing, oh my God, I love her.
Where, when, when areyou coming to my city?
That sort of comment is very goodfor anyone looking to hire me.
'cause it shows that there's anaudience that wants to see me.
I definitely use my social media toraise my value of gigs and raise my

(37:39):
prices or say, you know, they, I getapproached the, the pipeline is, they see
my social media, they get a video sharedwith them, then they email me through
my website right in my Lincoln bio.
Like that's what has beenhappening the past two years.
And it's, yeah, I mean, it,it's great because I'm not the
one reaching out saying, hi,can I perform at your festival?
They're the one reaching out to me,which is, I'm honored, I'm grateful, and,

(38:03):
but it's been a lot of work of me and ateam of two other people managing this.

JOnah (38:08):
Cool.
So, wow, that's really helpful andI think valuable for a lot of us
performers, so thank you for that.
Absolutely.
Let's talk about the.
Thing that we open this with, whichis the Mystify Magic Convention.
Yeah.
Which just happened.
I have so many questions.

(38:29):
First is like, big picturefor anybody who doesn't know.
What was it?
How was it?
And you know, what, what did you learn?

Leah Or;eans (38:38):
Absolutely.
Oh, what did I, okay, cool.
Great.
Buckle up.
Mystify Magic Festival is a threeday long magic convention centered
around the progress of womenand non-binary folk in magic.
So our entire lineup was like 90% womenand gender non-conforming people working

(39:00):
through different topics such as marketingand production, sleight of hand, the
history of women in magic of a very widevariety of topics, more than just, here's
the trick I made go by my lecture notes.
Mm-hmm.
It was a lot more active.
We had speakers such as DianaZimmerman and Connie Boyd,

(39:20):
Alex Hillie, Kristen Lambert.
We had a rockstar lineup that you cansee on our Instagram or website as well.
And it was with the intentionof centering and spotlighting.
A lot of folks who haven't beenspot lit yet have these full careers
and have been working and have, arefull-time magicians, but they've

(39:44):
never been on stage at a convention.
They've never had the opportunityto connect with those people.
And then our audience was, Ibelieve that based on our, our
like demographics from our ticketsales, that we had about 67% non men
attending, which is crazy for a master

JOnah (39:59):
convention.
Crazy.
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (40:01):
And that also gives us a whole bunch of supportive
guys that showed up too.
And for all different reasons,some of them were just ready
to see what this was gonna be.
Look like.
Some of them also have said,Hey, I feel really uncomfortable
in these normal spaces too.
This is new for me.
This is really nice to see this.
And we've also gotten a lot offeedback from the men that attended

(40:23):
that this was the convention that feltlike it had the least amount of ego

JOnah (40:28):
Hmm.
In the room

Leah Or;eans (40:29):
and the least amount of posturing and peacocking that happens
at these conventions where you'regoing tit for tat with who has a Yeah.
A better insert thing here.
You know?

JOnah (40:40):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (40:41):
And it was a very welcoming environment for folks who
are new to magic or a variety artsin general, and also experts who are
huge leaders in our industry, andto give them a platform to shine.

JOnah (40:55):
I have so many questions.
First of all, it soundedlike an amazing event.
Congratulations for Thank you.
Pulling it off.
You know, it was, I, I only heard thebest stuff and saw the best stuff on
social, so huge, huge congrats to you.
Yeah.
We got

Leah Or;eans (41:07):
a really, really strong response

JOnah (41:08):
Yeah.
For making it happen.
Thanks.
I think one of the things that I wantto learn more about is that, you know,
aside from the fact that, you know,the focus on who was the, you know,
who, who the people were that wereperforming and lecturing, it felt like
the content and the programming for theconvention itself was very different

(41:32):
than the standard Magic convention.
And, you know, a lot of magicconventions look exactly the same.
There's a couple of lectures thatare all basically people doing their
tricks and then selling their lecturenotes, and then there's a gala
show or two, maybe a closeup show.
That's basically what they look like.
Maybe a dealer's room, obviously.
And I know a lot of the titles of thosethings were similar, but what are some

(41:54):
of the things that you focused on tomake, not just who was presenting the
content, but what the content was?
Yeah.
To be so different.

Leah Or;eans (42:03):
That's a great question.
It was very thought out.
I had the privilege of spending 18months prior to this, working on this
project, and I overthought everythingand I asked and called so many
people, and it was such a large team.
I had a team of 50 people.
I'll play with this.
Wow.
I had seven directors and then allthose directors had assistants and

(42:26):
then a whole slew of volunteersand 10 people on my crew as well.
So it was not just me,although I definitely led the
charge and built the boat.
Everyone was working on the sails.
So it, it was a very big group effort.
And on that note, it wasimportant to me to be really,
once again, aware of my audience.

(42:47):
Hmm.
And a lot of people that weregonna come to this didn't know
a lot of the fundamental historyand basics that we needed to know.
So I made sure to like open witha Connie Boyd lecture of Women
in Magic and, and Margaret Steelelectured on Adelaide Herman.
And we, we laid a lot of groundwork,we gave a lot of context.

(43:09):
We made jokes in our opening show aboutwho Matt King is, who Jeff McBride is,
who Lance Burton is, why they matter.
Mm-hmm.
Like the, the, and all three ofthose men were at the convention
and able to support us financiallyand energetically saying this is
important, and lifting each other up.
So context was really importantfor me because I knew a lot of

(43:31):
our attendees didn't have it.
That being said, there's such a beauty in.
People walking in without thisdeep knowledge that, you know,
Michael Lamar and David Williamsonand all these people are like,
already these institutions in magic.
Like what creativity can comeout when we don't even know?

JOnah (43:54):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (43:55):
We don't have all of this context.
So it was really cool to listenand watch my attendees bring
their own fresh energy to it.
It didn't, it wasn't a lot ofpeople just doing copycat things
that other people have done.
So my programming also, I, I neededto lift that and support with that.

JOnah (44:16):
Awesome.
Really interesting to, you know, approachit from a mentality of, at least for
this one, like, let's lay some of thegroundwork and let's explain, you know,
how we got here as like one of theboxes that, you know, you focused on
checking, like really, really awesometo help educate as well as inspire.

(44:40):
What did you learn fromputting on the convention?
What did you learn thatmaybe you didn't expect

Leah Or;eans (44:44):
personally as a producer?
Like asking Leah or what she learned

JOnah (44:48):
first as a producer and then, you know, maybe around the
subject of like, women in Magic.
Like what did you learn?
Yeah,

Leah Or;eans (44:55):
sure.
I I learned that a lot of thecommon conceptions of women
based competition and cattiness.
And women vying over spots or shootingeach other down or things like that.
I find this is my, my personalawareness based on what I

(45:19):
experienced over the past two years.
So much of that comes from a
absence and a scarcity model.
So if there's only one spot at amagic convention for a woman to
perform, of course we're gonnabe competing over that spot.
Of course, that's gonna be a, athing to vie over and to mm-hmm.

(45:41):
Push each other down on because there'sscarcity where suddenly when there's
not scarcity and there's no tokenwoman, because we're all doing it,
everyone supports each other, and thesupportive energy that I've seen, and
I just sat back and watched between.
Women of all different ages andbackgrounds, lifting each other

(46:02):
up and hugging and laughing andsharing and giving each other notes
and, and positively, you know,lifting each other up through.
That was so cool to see.
And I think so much of, you know, somuch of it comes from, oh, there's not
enough to go around when there is, thereis enough because we, we make enough, we
can make enough opportunities for this.

(46:23):
It's not hard.
Mm-hmm.
And there's magic productions happeningin every state, all over the country.
Yeah.
At all

JOnah (46:30):
times.

Leah Or;eans (46:31):
You know, like, and, and why can't we produce a show
that's all women and tour that?
Like, what, what, what's stopping us?
Our audience is ready for it

JOnah (46:40):
for sure.

Leah Or;eans (46:41):
Like it.
Let's just just make it, just make thething, just create the opportunity.
Yeah.
I mean, I

JOnah (46:47):
think that's a really valuable take home, which is that, you know, one
thing that you had said earlier, I'mnot sure if it was before we started
recording or not, but you know, theone element of this industry is that
it is like individuals that Yeah.
Give opportunities.
And if it's hard to be, get in frontof those individuals and then it's
hard to get those opportunities.

(47:08):
But I think like what you're sayingright now is like, just be that
individual, like generate, youknow, generate the opportunity
on your own as best as you can.
Like that's, that's what maybe oneof the amazing things to come out of
this is, is, you know, individualsthat were potentially waiting for
opportunities to just make them happen.

Leah Or;eans (47:28):
Yeah.
I also learned personally to go slow.
I do a lot, I do a lotof different things.
Mm-hmm.
A lot.
Very fast.
And I'm very busy and a very busy person.
I'm traveling a lot and I'm touring a lot,and I have a lot of people working for me.
And this project allowed me to goslow because I had this kind of big
timeline and I could, I blocked offlarge chunks of my year to just be

(47:53):
home in my office, working on mystifyall of December, all of February was,
I took no gigs, I was home working.
And it was so nice to have that space,that brain space and to not rush.
And I am hoping to continuethat into the next chunks of

JOnah (48:13):
what

Leah Or;eans (48:14):
I do.

JOnah (48:15):
Love it.
Couple more questions about this and,and you know, what you learned around it.
Yeah.
I'm curious.
Both from your own perspective andmaybe from some of the things that
you've picked up in this space.
And maybe let me, let me prompt thisfor a minute, which is, you know, one
of the things you've said in a coupleof different ways is that like, you
know, the spaces that a lot of magictakes place in are sometimes not

(48:37):
the best and not the most welcoming.
I remember being 12 or 13 and go toa magic invention and there was my
friend who was my age and everyoneelse was, you know, white and 60
or to a magic lecture or something.
And it was like a weird space tobe in and like, yeah, it still is.
And I'm Yep.
Much older now.
And it, it's still aweird space to change.

Leah Or;eans (48:55):
And it has not changed.
Changed.
It has not,

JOnah (48:55):
somehow it was part of

Leah Or;eans (48:57):
the, the, the anger behind what I did.
'cause I was going to magicconvent when I was nine two, and
now I'm 30 and it hasn't changed.

JOnah (49:03):
It's the same.

Leah Or;eans (49:04):
So,

JOnah (49:06):
yeah.
Come on

Leah Or;eans (49:07):
guys.
Yeah.
So like, let's do it.
And

JOnah (49:09):
I, I can only imagine sort of what it.
All the different elements, sortof good and bad for what it feels
like to be a woman in this space.
Sure.
Not only in terms of opportunities orlack thereof or comfort or lack thereof
or, you know, all these different things.
I'd love to sort of ask something aroundlike both sides of the coin, which

(49:30):
is, what is the best and worst part ofbeing a woman in magic or a woman in,
you know, the, the entertainment space?

Leah Or;eans (49:39):
Sure.
I don't know if I'm completely qualifiedto even answer that as a, not actually
a woman in magic, but that's alsopart of why I am not a woman in magic.
Because even at 16, you know,when I was sexually harassed
at my first magic convention,and that is not a unique story.
Most of us share a story similarto somebody saying something

(50:00):
really inappropriate to us at abar, you know, un unannounced.
I was like, oh, cool.
This isn't a. This isn't, this isn't fun.

JOnah (50:09):
Yeah.

Leah Or;eans (50:10):
You know, this isn't a place for me, and no one's here to defend me.
No one's here to, I, I'm not gonna go toregistration and tell them what happened.
Nothing's gonna hap,nothing's gonna happen.
No one's gonna get kicked outbecause they said this to me.
Like, that's not, I know.
I don't believe that I am protected here.

JOnah (50:29):
Mm.

Leah Or;eans (50:30):
And that means that I'm on my own, which means
I don't really wanna be involved.
And especially when I'm not, youknow, I, that's coming from someone
who had a family in magic who hadquote unquote privilege and power.
And I know I could walk into a conventionand everyone knows my dad and everyone,

(50:53):
you know, I, I have this pedestalalready that I didn't even build myself.
And I still don't feel safe.
No.
So I'm gonna go to circus wherethere's body, body autonomy where
there's a lot of women in charge.
Where all my coaches are femaleand are gonna push me hard.
Not because I'm a cute girl,but because I'm an athlete with

(51:15):
potential to get good if I practiceenough, like we all are, you know?
So I think that's tough.
I think we're, I see that tidesshifting though, and the, there
is a very publicly known awarenessof representation on stage.

(51:38):
I'm hearing it from my bookers, fromagents, from people wanting women
on stage wanting diversity in theirlineup that we didn't, we, we weren't
talking about that 10 years ago.
So I think that there is no better timethan now to be a woman in entertainment.
And I think that is that the

JOnah (51:57):
quote unquote best part, you know, of,

Leah Or;eans (52:00):
of it.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
I think that's, I think it's a pro, yeah.
You know, to this con.
That doesn't mean that the difficultpeople are still out there, and it also
means that you can't blame the factthat you don't get work on your vagina.
Like you gotta be good.
Yeah.
If you're gonna get work

JOnah (52:19):
mm-hmm.

Leah Or;eans (52:19):
You're gonna, you gotta get good.
If you wanna have a fan base, if youwant to build your skills, like put your
nose down, stop crying and practice.
And I see that a lot too.
I see a lot of girls going, oh,it's just, it's because I'm a
woman that I don't get booked.
And I understand there is some truth tothat, but the people I hear that most
are the people that aren't practicing

JOnah (52:38):
right.

Leah Or;eans (52:38):
And the people that aren't staying late at events and talking to
producers and working on their website andhave good headshots and, and have an act,

JOnah (52:47):
an amazing act.
Right.
And have a good act.
Have a good freaking

Leah Or;eans (52:49):
act.
You know, do something differentthat isn't done before or
go go to an improv class.
Work on your standup work on yourability to interview Jesus Christ.
Right?
Everyone needs to learn how to interview.
To be able to answer questionsdistinctly with confidence, talk
about themselves without soundinglike they have imposter syndrome.

(53:12):
Like that is so important,especially for women.
There's so many women thatenter the spaces going, I don't
know if I'm really good enough.
It's like, well, you'renot with that attitude.

JOnah (53:19):
Mm-hmm.

Leah Or;eans (53:21):
You know, if you're on a new, on a morning news show and
you need to talk about why peopleare gonna come to your show and you
have 60 seconds to do it, if you'renot ready, that new spot's wasted.
So I think there's kind of this balanceof, you know, whether it's a good
time or a bad time, or hard or easy.
And you know, I think a lot of itcomes down to just freaking practice.

JOnah (53:44):
What a great I don't wanna say summary, but you know Yeah.
Snapshot as to sort of what'sgoing on in the space 'cause Yeah.
A lot of what you said, there's justso like, it, it was all true, you
know, like, but so many differentflavors of, sometimes it's a hard
space to be in and sometimes it's aplace where there's so much opportunity

(54:04):
and sometimes there's a lot ofindividuals who are holding people back.
But sometimes it's just, you know,being amazing and putting in the work
that is holding a lot of people back.
And I think it's a nice littlesnapshot and summary of what's going
on in, in that space right now.

Leah Or;eans (54:21):
Yeah.
One more thing that I think I learned asa producer, I'm so happy to tell this to
anyone who's listening, who's a performerwho hasn't produced anything, is to stop
taking things seriously when, mm-hmm.
Or no, I'm gonna start over.
One thing I really learned as a producer,and it's so important for anyone who's
an entertainer, who's not a producer toknow, is to stop taking things personally.

(54:46):
When a producer has to tell yousomething like, oh, you, you
actually can't open the show.
You have to be in the middle of the show.
Or, oh, we actually can't have that act.
We need you to do another act.
It is most likely hasnothing to do with you.
Mm-hmm.
It is probably because some light needsto be hung in some direction for some
other act that has to come in who needsa 10 by 10 loading space and insurance

(55:10):
doesn't cover this type of light.
Like there are so many logisticaldetails that result in an act getting
quote unquote downgraded or maybe underbilled for what they think they deserve.
Yeah.
That has nothing to do with them, andit was so hard for me to be like, oh,
I need to tell this person that they'renot gonna get the thing that they wanted.

(55:32):
They can't get shown in this lightthat I know that they deserve
because of some thing with the hotelcontract that has nothing to do
with them, where my hands are tied.
Yeah.
And so many producers won't say,Hey, this isn't personal, but
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
They'll just tell you the bad news andthen you'll spend two evenings worrying

(55:55):
about the thing you did wrong to piss offthe producer when it was never about you.
So like, my ability to justrelease that is so much better now.

JOnah (56:09):
Hmm.

Leah Or;eans (56:09):
The amount of things that a producer has to handle in logistic
compared to your seven minute actdoesn't mean you're not good, doesn't
mean you don't deserve the spotlight.
It just, it just understandthere's a lot of moving parts

JOnah (56:21):
and pieces.
Yeah.
I understand

Leah Or;eans (56:22):
that.
It's, it's a bit, it's bigger thanyou and the privilege that you have to
just walk into a space in an alreadybuilt theater and do your thing.
Comes with the knowledge thatthere's a whole bunch of stuff
that you don't have to deal with.

JOnah (56:36):
Like, you know, like even if someone is the biggest headliner of
an entire convention, then all inall at best, they are 10% of yes.
What gone on.
And that's for the biggestname, the biggest hire of the
biggest spot at the convention.
You are hundred percent, like probably5% or 3% of you know what's happening.

Leah Or;eans (56:56):
Absolutely.
And I mean we had Carissa Hendrick, LucyDarling as the host of our closing show.
You know, arguably aheadliner of the convention.
Yeah.
She's very well known in magic right now.
I barely thought about herinvolvement because I trusted her.

JOnah (57:08):
Mm-hmm.
Right?

Leah Or;eans (57:08):
And I knew that she could handle it.
I was like, great, we have her.
Awesome.
We signed our contract.
I know she'll show up.
I trust her availability and involvementand now it's up to my entertainment
director and my production directorto handle the details of her.
I'm gonna go deal with these other tinylittle things that have to get handled
that are very complex and difficult.

JOnah (57:31):
Well, great, great advice.
I think a lot of magicians and performerswho are listening to this will continue
to be in medium and large and extra largeproductions and you know, need to learn
that aspect or at least be reminded of it.
Last sort of question beforewe get to the wrap up bit.
What is the future of theMystify Magic Festival?
When's the next one and whatelse is going on with this?

Leah Or;eans (57:54):
Yeah, so we are far from being done.
This has been, the momentum behind thisis so strong and the amount of people
and institutions that wanna be partof this is really encouraging as well.
So if you're interested in joining usas a partner or a sponsor, please let
us know because we're looking for brandsand institutions, magazines or whatever

(58:16):
that want to be on the ground floor of.
Entertainment revolution andget their name out to people who
will immediately trust them too.
And I think that's one of thecool parts of our audience base
is that they trust us immensely.
So we're planning on a convention in 2027in the spring in Las Vegas, more de in

(58:37):
details and dates to be announced shortly.
And then between that, in our gapyear of 2026, we are expanding the
Mystify brand to include education.
We wanna create a education based lectureseries and kind of a subscription based
mystify edu so people can know whereto go to get really good resources.

(59:00):
Right now we're.
Microdosing that with a discord, youcan join our discord, which we're trying
to make the Magic Cafe, but not crappy.

JOnah (59:09):
So

Leah Or;eans (59:09):
a, a free online resource through Discord for tons of forums,
tons of channels about all differentthings from technical magic to book
recommendations, to gig resources and aplace to share your pets and talk about
food, you know, so it's, it's supposedto be really fun and community minded.
And then I'm also working on producingmini, mini mystify magic festival shows.

(59:34):
So one or two nights at a timein venues across the country with
an all female or fem lineup thatreally shakes the perception of
what you'd think a magician is.

JOnah (59:45):
Love it.
Really exciting.
Congrats on all thesuccess on all of this.
And the continuation and the,the support and excitement is
really, really an amazing project.
And it sounds like itis just the beginning.
Indeed.
There is a handful of wrap up questionsthat we do on each of these episodes.

(01:00:05):
The first is the endless change.
So in order to keep the podcastgoing on for eternity, each guest
is asked to recommend anotherguest that would be a really good
fit for this kind of conversation.
There are two catches.
The first catch is that you have tobe able to, I guess there's one catch.
You have to be able to put us in contact.
You can't just name a namethat you don't know who it is.

(01:00:27):
Oh, the other catch is I can'thave had interviewed them already
which is a bit of a catch.
Anybody come to mind?

Leah Or;eans (01:00:33):
Yeah, I do.
I think the first person that comesto mind is April, Jennifer Troy, who
is my production director for Mystify.

JOnah (01:00:39):
Beautiful.

Leah Or;eans (01:00:40):
I doubt that you've interviewed her.
Nope.
She's absolutely incredible.
She's currently an aerospaceengineer at nasa, but she's the
smartest person in the room.

JOnah (01:00:50):
Oh my God.
God.
She

Leah Or;eans (01:00:51):
is possibly the smartest person in Las Vegas
when she was there for Mystify.
Her brain is a beautifulspreadsheet, but she also is a
variety artist, fire whip performer.
She did artistry.
She was on the cover of Vanish.
She's incredible.
She's a, a Swiss army knife of a human.
Whoa.
And has a lot of great thingsto say about her perception.

(01:01:13):
She started working for NASA afew years ago, so she got out of
performing full time, but I'm, I'medging her back into the performance
world through her work with Mystify.
She produced all four ofour shows and is a absolute.
Joy to work with and a goodpersonal friend, so I can.
Awesome.

JOnah (01:01:33):
That is a great one.
Thank you so much for that.
Next thing is talking about like, youknow, people listen to this episode, maybe
while they were cleaning their car ordriving or whatever the heck people do.
I don't really know what people do.

Leah Or;eans (01:01:47):
Call me.
I got for names in my

JOnah (01:01:49):
car and yeah.
I don't know what they're doing.
But during that time, you know, wetalked about a lot of things and
I, I'd love to know, like if peoplewere to think back this episode and
remember like one nugget or that onething is maybe the most important
that you'd love to stick with them.
What, what might that be?

Leah Or;eans (01:02:02):
Yeah.
I think the thesis of mystify, and wetouched on this, but I'll, I'll wrap it
up in a little bow, is that opportunitiescome from people and you need to
practice, you need to be good, you needto be ready, and then you need to be
in the room with someone who's gonna beable to give you your next opportunity.
Be prepared to show up whenthey can give you that offer.

(01:02:26):
And I got to do that.
I got to be the person that offered thoseopportunities by putting on mystify.
And then I got to watch thoseconversations happen at Mystify.
Mm-hmm.
And people connect with each otherthat would've never been in the
same room together as a result.
And I believe strongly thatthat's how this industry works.

(01:02:49):
And it is all about who you knowand what you're ready for and
the combination of those things.
So practice, practice, practice, andthen get out there and meet people
and be ready to pitch yourself.

JOnah (01:02:58):
Awesome.
Really, really clear.
And sort of shows both parts ofthat show business, um mm-hmm.
Aspect.
Last piece is where can people find you?
Where can they learn about mystify?
Where can they keep up to date onall the things that are going on?

Leah Or;eans (01:03:13):
Yeah, so if you're looking for me personally and my silliness,
you can go to Tiny Girl Big show.comor Tiny Girl big show on Instagram.
Then if you're looking for MystifyMagic Festival, you can go to mystify
magic festival.com or Mystify MagicFestival on Instagram or Discord
now, which is very exciting.

(01:03:34):
And join the community there.
We have a few hundred membersalready on our Discord, and we
just launched a few days ago, soit's like, we're, we're doing it.
It's happening.
Come join us, go share your pet videos.
And yeah, those, thosespaces are the best.
If you're looking to partner withus or join the Mystify team and get
involved, you can go to our websiteas well and send me an email and

(01:03:57):
that'll go straight to my team.

JOnah (01:03:59):
Awesome.
Well, thank you so muchfor, for doing this.
Congrats on all thesuccess with the festival.
Yeah, I'm looking forward tosee what else comes of it.
And to everybody who listened andtuned in, thanks much for being
here and I'll see you next Thursday.
Thanks.