For the second year in a row, on June 5th, 2026 member volunteers of the Doug Henning Magic Wand IBM Ring 49 club performed shows for the clients of St. Joseph’s Villa in Dundas ON (a neighboring hamlet to Hamilton ON). Like last year, we performed separate shows for the Day Program clients and for the residents at the facility.
Shows like these are worth doing simply based on the charitable benefits they provide, but the rewards far exceed that. These were ‘stage shows’ format which not all magicians do regularly so this event offers exposure to them. Many of our members are strictly amateur/hobbyist, and we make an extra effort to include them as performers to allow them to gain some experience. Also it’s an opportunity to learn more about sound systems, stage lighting, staging (where to put props and organize the scene from the spectator’s perspective), and in quick stage ‘changes’ (i.e. swapping props for each performer).
Peter Wiltshire handled our backstage requirements again this year and provided the sound system for us. Technically he also handled the stage lighting, but the venue does not use the stage much and the lighting was still set up the way Peter had left them last year.
Our MC duties where skillfully handled by our own Rick Rossini, a well-known local performer and highly respected member of the ring. Rick covered our stage changes with some up-front effects and then introduced each of the four acts. Our show opened with Victor Staniewski performing an intricate effect based around (but with many other props) a D-Lite routine, followed by a Passe Passe bottles routine.
I followed Victor with a travel themed levitating suitcase and flying model plane routine, and then a routine I developed around a Gibson Box (a bit of a throwback to the past). Barry O, who combines magic with ventriloquism and puppetry, performed a couple of effect involving interactions with some of his co-performers, and Joseph Akhtar brought the shows home with some clever effects finishing with taking multiple boxes of flowers out of a seemingly empty bag. Congratulations to all performers, both shows went off very professionally and to great applause.
Submitted by Rene Chouinard