(WARRENSBURG, Mo.) – Spotlight hosted comedian and magician Brian Miller at Hendricks Hall last week Thursday Oct. 12.
Brian Miller, a well-known college comedian and magician of 13 years, has been recognized twice by the National Association of College Activities as one of their best performers. While currently touring the nation, he came to the University of Central Missouri and gave a performance that focused on college environments and what magic really is.
Jade Wackerman, a sophomore a criminal justice major at UCM and one of the event coordinators, said Spotlight must put on an event once a month for the four months classes are in session, and with homecoming going on, Spotlight decided that would be an appropriate time.
“Lots of people showed because of homecoming nominations” Wackerman said.
Open to the public, the event had a crowd with around 900 people attending, leading to a great deal of energy and crowd participation. During the show, the top 20 homecoming candidates were announced and the top 10 candidates were presented.
Wackerman said she hoped everyone had fun at the event and enjoyed the show.
Before the show, Brian Miller interacted with the audience by engaging individuals with conversation in various areas of the auditorium.
From his performance, Miller hoped that his audience understood that, in some way you can’t believe everything you hear and everything people say.
When asked if magic is hard, Miller said, “Everything is hard, everything take practice.”
Miller said that if any part of his art is hard, it is entertaining. He said the hardest part of performing is keeping the audience’s attention, and that it’s easiest to lose an audience during the transitions.
“Magic is finding a way to make the impossible possible.” Miller said.
He said something almost went wrong during the middle of the performance, but no one noticed it, and that’s what you must remember when performing.
“I don’t get nervous, but I do get butterflies before the show.”
Jasmine Cooper, a future freshman in the spring, said her favorite part of the show was how Brian Miller interacted with the crowd, getting them involved in the magic.
She said the impact the show had on her was that she got to learn a magic trick, and from now on, she will try not to pay attention to everything because you are going miss something anyway, so you might as well enjoy.
“Life is too short, so don’t over analyze everything.” Cooper said.