Magic on stage is enjoying a renaissance, with illusion designers now integral to big-budget productions. From making an elephant vanish to creating a levitating cat, these technical wizards are pushing the boundaries of theatrical storytelling. Chris Fisher, co-illusion designer for Stranger Things: The First Shadow, describes a dream sequence that combines elegant levitation with grotesque violence, prompting Netflix to ask, “How are you going to do the cat?”
John Bulleid, illusion designer for the Royal Shakespeare Company’s upcoming A Midsummer Night’s Dream, previously made the titular creature disappear in The Magician’s Elephant from a bare stage. Unlike Houdini or Paul Daniels, he had no hiding place. “Magic is the purest form of storytelling,” he says. “If you make a coin vanish, the audience doesn’t really care how you did it. What they care about is whether they believe it, and how it made them feel.”
Jamie Harrison, the other illusion designer on Stranger Things, recalls a trick for Sam Mendes’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where a paper plane soared into the audience. “Sam was tearing his hair out. Then finally, just before the audience came in, it worked. All the children in the cast happened to be sitting in the stalls.” He remembers them wide-eyed as the plane flew gracefully.
Both Fisher and Harrison were drawn to magic after childhood injuries left them bored. Fisher later worked in stage management, leading “magic Saturdays” for casts of We Will Rock You and Wicked. Harrison, after a lonely year as a magician in Thailand, trained as an actor and co-founded Vox Motus. Their collaborations include Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.
