Pure Magic

This "Facilitator's Note" appeared in the show Program the night of the show, Wednesday, November 19, 2025.

Facilitator's Note

Back in the spring, our cast member Ryan Emms walked into a rehearsal with a magician’s wand and started to perform some magic tricks. His character wasn’t a great fit for our spring show about movies, but we knew it would find a place eventually. When another troupe member chose the song “Magic Dance” by David Bowie as his karaoke song at our summer cast party, the message was becoming clear: we should do a show about magic, a theme we’ve never taken on.

Over the past ten weeks, we explored aspects of this theme and the troupe expressed that magic, for them, meant much more than magicians and illusionists. For them, it had to do with nature, with music, and with relationships, among other things. The show you see tonight is once again built by the troupe and is an expression of our thoughts and interests.

One story that many of us really wanted to tell in our fall show is The Lion King. We have done scenes from the musical before, but we have never told the whole story. In three parts tonight, we will act out this epic tale, which ends with the appearance of Mufasa, Simba’s father, in the night sky. What could be more magical than the existence of someone who we believed had passed away!

Tonight, we also feature an original story by our cast member Jamie Westington. Jamie had created a story involving magic and you’ll experience an abridged version of The White Knight as part of our show.

I was reading recently that early man looked at life on earth as a magical thing. Religion came along and gave meaning and direction to the strangeness and science arrived to order it and make life about theory and facts. My understanding is that in science and, perhaps, in religion too these days, there has been an acknowledgement that much remains a mystery, remains “super” natural (ie. expect superheroes!). We welcome you, tonight, to consider the place of magic in our world.

We also hope you’ll feel free to participate in the show by joining us to dance, by singing along, and by giving the troupe ideas for improv scenes. As always, we thank you very much for being here. Our show begins with a song whose lyrics include the line, “It’s magic when I’m with you.” I know the troupe feels that when you, our audience, are here there’s magic in the air!

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