To see some of Colin Plaisance’s magic tricks, click here.
Now you see it, now you don’t. One ball, two ball, three ball, none. The ball is in my hand, now it’s in yours.These phrases allude to just some in the grand arsenal of illusions frequently performed by the magician Colin-maillard, also known as mass communication freshman Colin Plaisance.”Pick a card,” he says. It’s the seven of hearts. The volunteer puts the card back into the deck, and Plaisance shuffles it several times. Then he puts the cards behind his back to try to find the chosen card.After a few seconds he brings the deck back out and flips over the top card. “Is this it?” he asks.”No,” says the volunteer.He flips the next card. Still not it.Then he starts coughing uncontrollably like there’s something caught in his throat. He reaches into his mouth and out comes a wadded up playing card.It’s the seven of hearts.The crowd of onlookers laughs in disbelief. One asks how he did it.”Can you keep a secret?” asks Plaisance, and the spectator nods in agreement.”So can I.”Half comedian, half magician, Plaisance is on his way to becoming a professional entertainer. He currently performs in his hometown of Houma doing birthdays, corporate events and fundraisers. He’s also been employed by local restaurants to entertain guests and opened for plays at the Le Petit Theatre. But besides the occasional improv act for strangers, or the more frequent party performance for his fraternity Tau Kappa Epsilon, Plaisance has yet to break into the Baton Rouge market.He started just two years ago after watching a British TV show about con-artists called “Hustle.””I’m horrible at guitar, and I needed something to impress girls,” Plaisance said of his real motives to start learning magic tricks.As a typical socially awkward high-schooler, Plaisance built his confidence in his high school’s improv comedy club and studied famous performers in his free time. “I didn’t have much of a social life before magic,” Plaisance said. “I used cards as a security blanket for a while, but now I have the confidence to go up to anybody, especially girls.”Of course, his looks might have helped. As a cross between a young Colin Farrell and David Blaine, Plaisance is well on his way to emulating his role model, Channing Pollock.Pollock was a famous Las Vegas magician in the ‘50s and ‘60s and was often billed as “the most beautiful man in the world.”Plaisance came up with his stage persona, Colin-maillard, because combining his first name with the French word translates in English to the game Blind Man’s Bluff. With his ease of combining humorous innuendos with his sleight of hand, one would never have pegged him as an awkward high-schooler.”My friends were making fun of me last year and now they’re begging me to do tricks,” Plaisance said.Plaisance said he frequently gets compared to David Blaine, the famous street magician, but without the creepy staring aspect.”I’ve definitely see Colin do tricks that David Blaine or someone like him would do,” said Aaron Garcia, geology sophomore and TKE fraternity member. Plaisance always carries cards on him for impromptu magic, even to impress girls when he and his fraternity brothers go out to bars.”It definitely works,” Garcia said of the magician’s ability to impress. “I was surprised.”Garcia said Plaisance is genuinely good at what he does, be it risqué comedy or sleight of hand.While cards and foam balls are easily carried and work for social situations, Plaisance is also working on a stage act and has a trunk full of props at home.He said he is hoping for a straight jacket for Christmas so he can practice an escape act from hanging 50 feet in the air. If successful, he hopes to use the stunt as a fundraiser for his fraternity.Plaisance currently does escape acts with rope and handcuffs. He said his most impressive trick is called “Nooseman’s Nightmare” where he hangs himself but his neck goes straight through the rope.Plaisance said his favorite part of performing is watching reactions.”You get to see peoples’ genuine emotions,” he said. “You connect with people.”Plaisance said magic, which applies both to performers and audiences, has no age limit. He said unlike most people in the entertainment industry, he doesn’t feel any pressure to get famous while he is still young. That’s why he’s enrolled at the University, to figure out if magic is really the route for him.One day the young magician hopes to see the name “Colin-maillard” in lights on the Vegas strip, but until then he practices daily and puts any money earned back into props and classes.”I do magic for at least one person a day,” he said. “If I don’t, I get uncomfortable.”- – – -Contact Lauren Walck at [email protected]