Ottawa Citizen

Local magician gets a chance to stump Penn and Teller

Bourada performed before the magic duo in Las Vegas before pandemic curtain fell

- PETER HUM phum@postmedia.com

After two decades as a profession­al magician, Michael Bourada does not typically get nervous.

For something to rattle him, “it would have to be something incredibly monumental,” the Stittsvill­e resident and Ottawa native says.

But in early March, before he was about to step onto the stage of the Penn & Teller Theater in Las Vegas, Bourada, 36, had the jitters.

For his Las Vegas debut, he was about to perform a trick he had done thousands of times, but in front of not only a packed house but also the theatre’s namesake magicians Penn Jillette and his partner Teller, for their internatio­nal hit TV show Penn & Teller: Fool Us.

The episode, which will reveal whether Bourada managed to fool Penn and Teller as to how he pulled off his trick, airs Monday at 9 p.m. on the CW Network.

Of course, Bourada will not say whether he stumped the two magic stars. He will say that his trick blends comedy and magic, and that he tweaked its script to optimize it for television. “It’s funny but also quite impressive is the best way I would describe it,” he says.

He does add that once he stepped on the stage, he was calm. Then, when he left the stage, about eight minutes later, he was “extremely proud,” while his wife and father, who attended the performanc­e, said he had done “amazingly well.”

In a sense, Bourada came full circle when he went to Las Vegas in March, just days before the novel coronaviru­s curtain fell on North America.

Bourada, who usually gives more than 200 magic performanc­es in Ottawa and beyond in any given year, fell in love with magic when he visited Las Vegas as a teenager on a family trip. The highlight of his trip was a show by magician Lance Burton, who ultimately did more than 15,000 shows in Las Vegas during his three-decade career.

The Ottawa teen, who had a magic kit as a child and liked it, was “immediatel­y hooked and enthralled,” he says. “From there on, I wanted to be like Lance Burton. I wanted to be a magician. I’ve never looked back.”

Bourada sent submission­s to appear on Penn & Teller: Fool Us for five years — almost as long as the prestigiou­s show, a showcase for the world’s best magicians, had been on the air.

“It’s very hard to get on the show,” Bourada says, adding that the show almost certainly receives thousands of submission­s annually from around the world.

After years of rejections, Bourada in January of this year got an early morning invitation in his email to appear.

“I flew out of bed like there was firecracke­rs going off. It was overwhelmi­ng,” Bourada says.

Bourada says his performanc­e on the TV show is more of a personal milestone than a career achievemen­t. “If this is the peak, which I hope it’s not, it’s something I’ll always be able to look back on and be proud of.”

On March 10, a few days after he returned from Las Vegas, Bourada received word that he had been offered a 25-city tour across Canada starting in September and extending after a winter break into the spring of 2021. Of course, when COVID-19 restrictio­ns came into full swing, the tour was put on hold.

Given other cancelled performanc­es in 2020, Bourada says that he, like so many performing artists everywhere, was dealt a massive blow by the pandemic. “I’m operating at about 25 per cent of my usual business,” he says. “I lost tens of thousands of dollars.”

Like many performers, he has taken his talents online, converting some of his gigs into virtual performanc­es. During the pandemic, he even gained almost 170,000 followers on the social media platform TikTok, where Bourada posts quickie magic clips on a daily basis.

As COVID -19 restrictio­ns have loosened, live magic shows are possible and are even starting to pick up, Bourada says. “I’ve changed the

If this is the peak, which I hope it’s not, it’s something I’ll always be able to look back on and be proud of.

way I present my show to be very socially distant, but still interactiv­e and fun and enjoyable. The show’s very safe,” he says.

Bourada remains optimistic that one day, perhaps by next spring or hopefully sooner, he and his performing peers will be as busy as they used to be.

“I have a feeling people will be back to watching performanc­es. I believe every form of live entertainm­ent will return,” he says.

 ?? JULIE OLIVER ?? Michael Bourada has been working as a magician for 20 years and was delighted to finally appear on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, which was recorded days before the pandemic put an end to gatherings.
JULIE OLIVER Michael Bourada has been working as a magician for 20 years and was delighted to finally appear on Penn & Teller: Fool Us, which was recorded days before the pandemic put an end to gatherings.
 ??  ?? Local magician Michael Bourada will make his appearance on Monday’s episode of Penn & Teller: Fool Us, but how he did on the previously filmed show remains a mystery until the episode airs.
Local magician Michael Bourada will make his appearance on Monday’s episode of Penn & Teller: Fool Us, but how he did on the previously filmed show remains a mystery until the episode airs.

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