A night with Penn & Teller

josh-and-teller

This past weekend continued my aim to get out and do more this year, and boy was it a treat: Penn & Teller visited Foxwoods, and I had the opportunity to see them live.

Funnily, I had been contemplating a trip to Vegas, with Penn & Teller high on the list.  Now that I’ve seen them live, I know I have to do that.  It was such an entertaining 90 minutes of rapid-fire humor, magic and all-around entertainment.  It’s the act of a well-honed duo that knows what they’re doing, of course, but it’s kind of cool how, sort of like musicians or comedians, they have famous bits mixed in with new items that were well balanced throughout the show.

Some of the tricks I had seen on television previously; it didn’t take one bit out of the enjoyment of seeing them do them live. One of the newest tricks they did was one they performed on a recent British series, “Penn & Teller: Fool Us” (a great series to watch, I might add). The helium trick above was one; the cell phone one below was another.

Some of the most enjoyable bits were short and sweet, and consisted of Teller, silent as always, up on stage performing relatively short, yet amazing, tricks.  He performed one of his famous tricks involving a container of water, which can be seen here:

He also performed what might be his signature trick, involving a flower and a shadow:

After the show, both Penn and Teller spent an enormous amount of time in the lobby of the MGM Grand at Foxwoods, meeting with fans.  My photo with Penn came out so horribly, it might as well have been an illusion.  We almost had the same issue with Chris’s picture with Teller, but when Teller heard my comment “It’s not coming out,” he encouraged Chris to change his phone’s settings so we could get a good picture (yes, Teller speaks offstage).  Can’t say I’ve ever seen someone 90 minutes in a circle who’d be patient enough to allow that.

josh-and-teller-2

If you enjoy magic, or watching Penn & Teller on TV, or just really get into a good show, this is one you have to see. I had a blast, and am really hoping I can catch them again at some point.

2 thoughts on “A night with Penn & Teller

  1. It’s always great when celebs are patient with fans – cool photos! I’ll have to check out the videos sometime today. I’ve been watching Penn on Celebrity Apprentice (i know, horrible. what a guilty pleasure) and Teller came to NYC to help him out quite a bit. I also kind of want to read Penn’s latest book.

    • I must confess I’ve enjoyed The Apprentice when I watch it, but it hasn’t been appointment television for me. I like the concept, if not always the execution. The very first episode, when they opened a lemonade stand on the streets of New York, was an inspired way to introduce the concept. But with no home TV, it’s hard to miss it when I don’t ever see it 🙂

      I haven’t sought out their books specifically (they had one on sale at the show), but I probably will add it to my Kindle wish list to remind myself for later.

Leave a Reply to Nick Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *