‘Super Magic Man’

Reggie Rice finds his character in ‘Super Magic Man’

Friday, June 27, 2008

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His mood was volatile and manic. He wore a bright orange suit with a purple tie, black shoes and a Superman belt buckle.

It was June 13, the day before his show at St. John Vianney Family Life Center in Prince Frederick — the first event in a three-weekend, three-county tour of small theaters — and in preparation for the show Rice and his crew appeared to be dealing with more than a few obstacles.

Rice has been doing his magic show for almost three years; by now it’s ingrained. Each theater, nonetheless, has its own quirks involving the curtains and soundboard and lights.

Rice, known as the ‘‘Super Magic Man,” is an illusionist, which he says is a fancy word for ‘‘magician.” He recently won the award for Washington, D.C.’s Comedy Magician of the Year for the second time in as many years. His family-friendly act, which is wildly popular with children and usually wins over the adults, combines a variety of magic tricks with his enormous onstage persona, comic energy, music and even some Michael Jackson-like dance moves.

Kathy Hollyer, who originally hired Rice to work at Hyperspace Fun Center in Hollywood, helps produce his shows. Her son, James Hollyer, is Rice’s top assistant magician. Rice is also aided on the stage by Brittney Vincent.

While a crew assembled props with power tools, Rice bounced around from the back to the front of the stage with a staple gun and tape measure. He answered questions (Where are the safety pins?), and he had his hands in a little bit of everything.

‘‘You got to put more muscle into it,” he said, demonstrating how to use the electric drill. ‘‘Use both hands.” Then he was back to putting together the large metal contraption he assembled for ‘‘metamorphosis,” a Harry Houdini-like trick in which he disappears behind a curtain and wrestles out of a straightjacket.

Suddenly the stage was clear. There were the rolling tables and the fold-up wall.

It was time for a run-through, but the magician spent most of his time in the control room.

And then the pizza arrived. The hours had passed in what felt like minutes.

Time was up. The crew had to leave.

A week later

It was 3 p.m. Rice was in the back of the Port Tobacco Theater in La Plata. He was loading up a truck he had recently purchased.

His Superman cellphone rang: A man was calling about tickets. Perhaps Rice had been taking a lot of those calls. ‘‘Not as many as I would like,” he said. Instead of a suit he was wearing shorts and an Allen Iverson jersey.

The theater was over-run by a children’s theater camp. They were running through the aisles. They were laughing and singing. They were painting on the stage and painting themselves in the process. Sometimes they would even get upset and cry, which was where Rice came in. ‘‘Reggie,” said a young counselor. ‘‘Another kid is crying. Can you help me out?” Rice stopped what he was doing, walked over to the boy, bent down and started some sleight-of-hand tricks with a three-sided coin. The change was instant: The child burst into laughter.

‘‘It’s magically charged for the rest of the day,” he said, handing the child the coin. ‘‘Just put it under your pillow tonight and tomorrow there will be a dollar. Just remember to tell your mother I said so.”

With the truck nearly packed, Rice walked out the door beneath a marquee with his name on it and crossed the street, bound for the Dash-In to buy some lunch. He paid for his food and got a chuckle out of the clerk with a device that always helps him out in a magic-jam — a wallet that flips open and unleashes flames.

His first show at the 225-seat theater in Prince Frederick only sold 40 tickets. But that seemed to be less of a concern to Rice than the overall quality of the performance. He has high standards; he pushes himself hard. And when the show ended he was worried that the quality was not there; his worries were assuaged, however, when he watched the video and saw that the show was in fact up to par.

He seemed hopeful that the show in La Plata would sell more tickets, and he was extremely optimistic about this weekend’s shows in Lexington Park.

Born in Puerto Rico, Rice moved to Great Mills when he was 3 weeks old. He did not leave town for longer than a week until he was 18, when his job at Wal-Mart took him to another store in Delaware.

Rice began to work at Wal-Mart when he was 16. During that time he also took a part-time job at Hyperspace Fun Center, which closed less than a year ago after five years of business.

At Hyperspace, Rice helped to put on ‘‘magic birthday parties.” Starting out as a 19-year-old with a small kit, Rice realized that better tricks meant better tips.

He began to get requested, and as the shows grew in size, so did Rice’s repertoire. Soon enough he was getting requested outside of Hyperspace at banquets, fairs, picnics and various community events.

While he was working at Hyperspace, Rice went to a food show that had hired the magician Giovanni Livera, who has won some of the most prestigious awards in the world of magic. Rice introduced himself, and Livera told him that if he wanted to take magic seriously he needed to join the International Brotherhood of Magicians, which holds an annual event at a different place every year. Rice, Hollyer and her son all traveled to the convention, and Rice has returned five straight years.

That first year he met the renowned magician Jeff McBride. Each year, the conventions feature different headliners and instructors who teach everything from good tricks to good business.

‘‘If I did not go to these conventions I would not be where I am today,” Rice said. ‘‘Each year I learn 100 times more stuff than I can retain. I come home with 10 percent of what I’ve learned and excel that much further. ... I realize how much more I know, how much less I have to learn.”

Rice acknowledges he does not always have the best illusions. But he believes he makes up for it with a stage presence others lack. Magicians refer to it as ‘‘it.” Either you have this ‘‘it” or you don’t. Rice believes he does.

‘‘A magician is an actor playing the part of an actor,” he said, breaking out one of the hundreds of quotes he memorizes, ‘‘not the other way around.” Magicians are wary of potential copycats, and as Rice explained it, one needs to establish a character.

Early on, Rice got caught up with the mysterious qualities of McBride. ‘‘When I first started, I tried to imitate that,” he said. ‘‘And that’s not my character. It took me a while to learn how to do what I like to do.”

Outside of all that — outside of various character and personas and ‘‘Super Magic Man” — Rice has no doubt about his life’s direction. He is doing magic full time, and in between his theater performances, he still is doing solo shows. A side job could compromise things, and the only thing Rice is willing to sacrifice at this point is practicing his tricks in favor of promotion. He has handed out thousands of fliers.

Since leaving St. Mary’s County for the first time at 18, Rice has traveled across the United States and to Europe. Now he’s enamored with the road, a touring schedule in line with David Copperfield.

Rice said his dyslexia made high school classes difficult. It may be part of the reason he became something of a class clown.

He excelled at sports. He has plenty of training in dance, gymnastics and theater. Never has he experienced anything remotely resembling stage fright.

‘‘Being on stage in front of people is what I love the most,” he said. ‘‘When I am not on the stage, I feel bored. I have always been in the spotlight, and that’s where I like to be.”