By Dom LoVallo
Managing Editor
Students and faculty gathered in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts to watch comedic-magician Brian Miller perform Tuesday night.
CAB organized the event, and Beth Palumbo, CAB advisor and assistant director of activities, recreation and leadership at Bonaventure, said Miller’s ties to Buffalo made him an interesting person to perform on campus.
“It’s definitely a nice tie in when you know the area…You can kind of relate. And I also found it very fascinating, some of the inspirational speeches he gives, that he didn’t necessarily do here, but you could see that come through in his talks organically.”
From the beginning of the show, Miller had people in their seats trying to figure out how to uncross their arms and the magic only got better from there.
Miller asked for volunteers from the audience and Nick Ventura, a freshman education major, was the first person pulled from the audience.
“It was awesome,” Ventura said. “I’ve never been up [on stage], so it was a first time experience for me. It was pretty cool.”
Miller lured Ventura’s participation with the possibility of turning Ventura’s $1 bill into a $100 bill. Instead, Ventura left with his dollar’s corner ripped out.
For Craig Cisco, a sophomore management major, Miller not only left the crowd in awe with his magic, but made the audience laugh the entire time as well.
“[Miller] did really well,” Cisco said. “Even teaching us one or two tricks; he made it really fun. It wasn’t like he was just doing magic. He was actually making people laugh during [the show].”
Starting to do magic when he was around four years old, Miller said he was one of those kids who never stopped thinking magic was cool.
“When I was like 11 or 12 I started taking [magic] seriously, not just little kits but learning sleight of hand. At 14 years old a local youth church group offered to pay me to do a show. And it had never even occurred to me that you could get paid to do magic, and so that’s what set off the light bulb.”
Miller said he quit his first job as a McDonalds grill master at 16 and has been doing magic ever since.
The crowd’s reactions during Miller’s set ranged from silence to amazement to the shrieks of witnessing witch craft.
Miller grew up wanting to hear people shriek, but learned to appreciate all the reactions he receives.
“When I was younger, all I wanted was for people to scream. I wanted them to gasp, or ‘oh my God,’ or start cursing or flipping chairs over,” he said, adding as time went on, his hopes changed. “[Now] if you were just listening you’d think the show wasn’t going well, but what I can see on people’s faces, they’re just leaning in thinking, ‘ok, so I just can’t blink next time, because I don’t know what just happened.”
Laughter is another reaction Miller loves to receive. Not only for the jokes he makes, but also for his magic. He likes it because people’s mind and body don’t know what to do so they just end up laughing.
Miller said he would love to come back to St. Bonaventure and perform his mix of comedy, magic and music in the future. For more information about Miller, visit BrianMillerMagic.com.
lovalldv15@bonaventure.edu
