Illusionist performs at TransCanada Theatre

An Alberta-born award-winning illusionist is coming to Olds.

Derek Selinger, who was born in Vegreville and spent summers with his grandparents on a farm near Spruce View, will be performing his new show, The Gift, Dec. 8, 7:30 p.m. at the TransCanada Theatre.

Selinger, who describes himself as being in his "middle years" says he discovered magic at the age of eight.

"I was part of the Scouts and I learned a rope trick and that seemed to impress some people, so then I got kind of interested and started to send away for some magic tricks," he says.

"Honestly, in high school, it was a way to break the ice; I was an awkward kid. I was shy and you know, it was a way to meet girls," he adds. "I never, ever dreamt it would be a career until I was in college."

"In my early 20s, a Vegas headliner took me under his wing and helped me develop. I won the Canadian national title and the people's choice award at the world championships.

"So that was a big break for me. And winning those events got me into Europe. I toured Asia a bit, I did the cruise ship market, played Vegas and those types of things," he says.

He says Peter Raveen, another well-known illusionist, became his business mentor in the early 2000s and "really helped me a great deal and became a good friend."

Now Selinger performs his magic and illusions all over the world.

"This show is the culmination of all of my expertise over many, many years," he says.

"It's been played out on stage and performed quite a few times in Western Canada, but I wanted to bring it to a community kind of close to where my grandparents' farm was and where some of my relatives live so they could come and enjoy the show."

Selinger describes the show as "a cross between (magicians) Penn & Teller and Michael Buble with a twist of Prairie sensibility."

He says it will include basic things like card tricks. Some will be blown up on a big screen to make them easier to see.

"There's a lot of mind reading involved with it and the types of things that you may have seen on television and wondered if, 'does it really work like that?' Well, you're going to see that it really does," Selinger says.

"My signature piece is a gallows, like hangman's nooses. We do Russian roulette with hangman's nooses – no audience members involved with that.

"It's a first-class production. We bring a quarter of a million dollars' worth of gear into the room and produce a very visually robust show."

Selinger says there'll be lots of opportunities for members of the audience to be involved.

"We do some mind reading stuff and I literally go into the crowd and perform, surrounded by the entire audience," he says, adding he will also perform "some very high-end sleight of hand pieces on stage."

"The thing that I'm known for internationally is I make hundreds of cards appear at my fingertips to big band music. Decks and decks of cards just keep appearing. I perform that literally around the world."

Selinger says there's good reason the show is called The Gift.

"What I get to do on a nightly basis when I perform is give my audience a gift, and that gift is the experience of something wonderful," he says, adding he gets a charge out of seeing very serious adults exhibit childlike wonder at what he can do.

"I really believe that one of the strengths of this show in particular is not just is it baffling and entertaining and engaging – all those types of things – but when you leave, you're going to feel better than when you went in. It's like a pep talk for your soul, you know. You kind of feel good."