From creator to contestant, stage magic is a small world

Stage magic is a small world, any way you measure it.

Piff the Magic Dragon appearing on the CW's "Masters of Illusion" and NBC's "America's Got Talent" the same week? Hey, they only aired the same week. Filmed at different times, folks.

Two guys transporting playing cards from one audience volunteer to the other, right next door to one another, at sister properties of the same company? Hey, Mac King wears a yellow raincoat at Harrah's Las Vegas, while Mat Franco wears a hoodie at The Linq.

But I think we have a new champion here. On Monday, Rick Lax will step up as a contestant on the CW's "Penn & Teller: Fool Us."

If you don't know the name, it's because Lax hasn't really performed as a magician in more than 15 years. "I haven't done a paying gig since I was 17, and back then it was kids' birthday parties," he says.

But the Las Vegan does work for the online Penguin Magic, inventing new tricks and improving the presentation of existing ones for the company.

Makes him the perfect contestant, right? After all, "Fool Us" is about magicians trying to present a trick that Penn & Teller can't figure out. Now that the second season filmed in Penn & Teller's Rio theater is a hit for the CW (the first was filmed in England), it's going to be more and more of a challenge to find viable contestants.

But here's the point of our story. Lax helped develop another magic competition called "Wizard Wars," and he sold it to Syfy last year with the help of Penn & Teller lending their clout as on-camera judges.

So, the creator of one Penn & Teller-related competition series crosses over to compete on another.

Lax says he submitted the same audition materials to "Fool Us" as any other contestant. The show's voracious need for challenging magic seems to outweigh the irony of the situation.

"The magic community is so small, and everyone knows Penn and Teller," Lax says. "That's the case for everyone who goes on 'Fool Us.' There's two degrees of separation. If you don't know Penn and Teller personally, you at least have a mutual friend."

You can back that up with Penn & Teller's friend King creating a viral-worthy TV moment by eating a guinea pig (burp) on "Fool Us" in July. Or Penn Jillette reminding his Twitter followers to vote for Piff, another buddy, on "America's Got Talent."

And, Lax adds, "I know their judging is 100 percent fair and unbiased. These two are not going to be influenced by anything."

One final irony. For his 2008 book "Lawyer Boy," a comic memoir about a year in law school, Lax enlisted Jillette for a jacket blurb: "I'm really glad he's getting the law degree so he has a job other than magic — we don't need this kind of competition," he wrote.

Lax says "Wizard Wars" won't be back on Syfy. "The ratings were really good," but the network is tightening its brand focus and even moved "WWE SmackDown" to sister channel USA to concentrate on sci-fi and fantasy.

Lax and Las Vegas magician Justin Flom, currently on tour with the band Florida Georgia Line, are working to follow up "Wizard Wars" with another concept for basic cable.

And speaking of Piff ...

The sour Brit in the green dragon suit has made it to the final round of 10 acts for the "America's Got Talent" showdown Tuesday. America then votes for its winner, who will be announced in the results show Wednesday.

Most of this year's top 10 will presumably take part in the Las Vegas engagement that is promised to the winner. This year it will be Oct. 22-24 in the upstairs theater at Planet Hollywood Resort, which will not have a branded resident tenant after ventriloquist Jeff Dunham wraps up his "Not Playing With a Full Deck" run Oct. 4.

(Dunham's wife, Audrey, is pregnant with twin boys, which would make it seem like a good idea for him to take another year off from the road. But ticket-buyers and promoters in other cities may have a stronger voice in that decision.)

The real magic is how Piff (John van der Put) got this far without breaking character. After a great sequence incorporating the four judges last week, Piff accepted their praise with his usual cranky expression, all the while pouring sugar into a coffee mug.

Phoning in from New York rehearsals, Piff described his run as "doing what I love doing in front of the American public with as much grumpy fun as possible."

He was confident about his ability to keep upping the ante for his performances.

"If I make it through, I've got my favorite ever trick planned for the finals," he said. "The good thing is I've done five separate hourlong shows over the years, and I've got five 'closers' (big finales) over the years from that."

The magician spent August working the Fringe comedy festival in Edinburgh, Scotland, for his fourth time. "We sold every ticket possible this year" he says of working a 250-seat venue, "which in Edinburgh terms is ginormous."

Still, he owes the Flamingo comedy revue "X Comedy — Uncensored Fun" two more weeks, which he will perform in the second half of this month after "Talent" wraps. Then he will spend the rest of the year on the road and "try to put down a real plan" for next year.

"I love Vegas; I want to have a permanent presence in Las Vegas," he says, even if it's a residency similar to comedian Eddie Griffin or singer Matt Goss, spending only a portion of each week in town.

— Read more from Mike Weatherford at reviewjournal.com. Contact him at mweatherford@reviewjournal.com. Follow him on Twitter: @Mikeweatherford