Loading ...When Your Boss is Your Better Half
Saturday, May 1st, 2010
Kyle and I have been together now for over 8 years, and throughout our entire relationship we have been performing together, which creates an interesting dynamic between us. Since we first became a couple in June 2003 we have only been apart for a total of a couple weeks, and because our life is our career, we aren’t like most couples who go to work in the morning and then come home to their significant other at night. Producing, managing, and performing in your own show requires constant focus and equal dedication on both of our parts, so most of our time is spent trying to create original ideas, writing interesting new scripts, and rehearsing the new additions to the show. Even when we’re on vacation it is usually spent running errands for the show or making repairs to the equipment.
On show days, as we like to call them, the entire day is consumed by preparation for our performance that night, and when we leave the room that morning for our rehearsal we leave our relationship at the door. Kyle and I both have strong type A personalities; both perfectionists, assertive, and we both like to take control of the situation. Like every couple we aren’t perfect and we don’t always agree on everything, but we know that to remain professional we cannot let our emotions get involved. We understand that the show comes first and we both focus on giving theaudience best show that we possibly can.
Fortunately no matter what stresses we may have in our lives, once we get onstage it all seems to fade away. We know that we are blessed because we have a job that we love and the opportunity to share it with SOMEONE that we love. Sometimes I’m amazed at how well we have been able to get along over the years, working so closely together and rarely having personal space at all. I guess it just shows if you truly love and respect each other, then everything else will just fall into place. We truly are best friends, and we bring out the best in each other, as performers and as individuals. We’ve been through more in the last few years than what most couples go through in 20 years, and now, afteralmost 8 years together, we were married April 23, 2010 overlooking the mountains in Las Vegas! It takes a special relationship to be able to perform together and produce a successful show, and I believe that we are one of the “lucky ones” who not only love each other, but we enjoy being together every single day. I’m so thankful for the amazing relationship that we have, and that we have the opportunity to to perform and travel the world together as husband and wife!
Performing for an International Audience
Thursday, November 26th, 2009
Kyle and I have been blessed to spend the majority of 2009 touring the Mediterranean, visiting amazing places such as London, Rome, Florence, Nice, Monaco, Barcelona, and Capri just to name a few. Traveling to some of the most popular tourist destinations in Europe is an obvious perk of the job, but it also presented us with a interesting yet difficult situation as well, international audiences.
When audience is comprised of people from all over the world, several things affect their response to our show. Comedy is relative to one’s culture and surroundings, so it isn’t universal and many jokes that had fit so perfectly into our show before, had to be taken out. We also found out rather quickly that Europeans are a bit more shy about coming onstage and getting involved, which affected us because audience participation makes up a great deal of our show. And of course, a language barrier can be quite a challenge for any verbal performer. One might assume that magic is mostly visual, but that isn’t always the case. Over the years we have tried to become more creative and original, which in turn has lead us to have less grand illusion and more personality driven routines. Some of our best effects involve a significant amount of speaking, things such as predictions and “mind reading”, but when performing for an audience that doesn’t speak English, this type of magic is not an option and some of our favorite effects had to be cut.
While performing for international audiences can be challenging, it is also a blessing in disguise because it forces us to be more creative and allows us to experiment with new material. During our 2009 European run we were able to add multiple new effects into the show, including one which showcases a duet of magic and music, with me accompanying Kyle’s magic with my own piano performance. I was also able to learn a great deal of Spanish, and since our home port is Barcelona I have been translating the show in order to connect with the Spanish audience members which has proven to be beneficial on and off the stage. Overall, it’s been a great learning experience for us but we’re looking forward to getting back home to The States. I think Dorothy said it best when she said, “There’s no place like home!”
Magic Can Be Dangerous!
Friday, August 7th, 2009
This past week during our show we had a minor catastrophe! Sure, over the years we’ve had accidents and I’ve gotten hurt in the show before (check out my other blog entry “When Things Go Wrong”) but nothing like this has ever happened to us before. About 5 minutes into the first of two shows that night we were performing the illusion pictured above called Compressor. During this illusion we have a young boy onstage with us who interacts with me, walks around the illusion and even crawls through the space underneath. Then Kyle then turns the prop around for the audience to see it from both sides, but this time one of the wheels gets stuck in the tracks on the stage (grooves used to bring set pieces on and off stage) and the entire illusion – with me in it – falls backwards to the ground. There is a collective gasp from the audience and to me the seconds seem like minutes.
It’s a terrifying moment to say the least when I realize that I am falling and I can do nothing to stop it. The prop is easily a couple hundred pounds, and the piece that is under my neck pops up and hits me right between the eyes. Kyle immediately picks me and the illusion back up, and despite the accident, the illusion was still performed successfully without ruining it for the audience. Still inside the prop, I start feel blood running down my face and I hear another gasp from the audience, so I wave goodbye and the curtain comes down. Meanwhile Kyle is onstage with our young volunteer just looking up at him with a confused look on his face. Kyle says with a smile “Well that’s never happened before!” and the audience chuckles. Then he looks at the young boy and says with a smile “You entertain them, I’m going to go check on Mistie.” Without missing a beat the boy starts dancing (doing the running man and the cabbage patch!) and the audience roars. A few seconds later Kyle comes back out onstage and says “Well she’s okay…but she’s NOT happy!” and the audience laughs again. Our volunteer goes back to his seat with a huge round of a applause and a souvenir Knight Magic DVD. Kyle moves on to the next effect in our show, having no idea whether or not I will make it onstage for it. He’s knows me though, so he’s calm and he’s not worried.
Backstage isn’t quite as calm, however, in fact it is utter chaos! No one knows if I’m okay or not or what is going to happen next, and somehow our awesome stage staff simultaneously set up the next routine AND attempt to find me a bandage. All I can think about as I change costumes is getting back onstage to make my next cue, but I can’t get the bleeding to stop. I make it onstage in time to hand out envelopes to the seven volunteers onstage, all the while assuring them that I’m going to be okay, and once each one is in position I hurry back offstage to find a bandage. The only one we can find is huge and it looks so silly right between my eyes, but it’s better than nothing so I put it on and rush back onstage in time to write down the phone number that was chosen randomly by our volunteer. As I stand onstage waiting for the climax of the routine I see people in the audience looking at me with worried eyes, but I just wink at them and smile. Little do they know that smiling and winking is causing me even more pain!
At the end of the routine I’m offstage and changing costumes (and bandages) again and within a minute I walk back onstage to introduce my next routine, telling audience “Don’t worry about me folks, I’m going to be find just don’t mind the band-aid between my eyes! We’ve got a great show for you tonight and the show must go on so it’s time for me to find someone to help me out with this next routine…” From that point on the audience seems to forget about the would-be disaster that happened onstage, and they enjoy the rest of the show offering support and encouragement through their cheers and applause. By the end of the 50 minute show my face is very swollen and I’ve got huge bruises all over my body, but when I see that 1500 seat theater standing in appreciation for our performance, any discomfort I was feeling just disappears.
Six days later I sit here with a couple of black eyes, but I have a big smile on my face because I’m proud of the way we handled the situation. It’s true what they say, “the show must go on”, no matter what happens…and it’s worth it. Besides, now I have a great story that I will be telling for the rest of our career!
Knight Magic raises over $2500 for Make A Wish Foundation
Sunday, July 12th, 2009
During the summer of 2009, Kyle Knight & Mistie helped to raise over $2500 for the Make A Wish Foundation by donating to weekly silent auctions onboard RCI’s Vision of the Seas. Kyle and Mistie performed a private show for the winning bidder, and had dinner with them that evening in the formal dining room. Throughout the month long event Knight Magic raised more money than any other single auction in the entire Royal Caribbean fleet!
Since 1980, the Make-A-Wish Foundation® has given hope, strength and joy to children with life-threatening medical conditions. From humble beginnings with one boy’s wish to be a police officer, they have evolved into an organization that grants a child’s wish in the U.S. every 40 minutes with funds raised by auctions like this.
Moving Into A New Theater
Thursday, January 15th, 2009
Most people are never aware of the hard work that goes into installing our hour long headline show into a new theater, so I’d like to take you, in detail, through a typical show day for me when performing in a new venue. When we are booked to perform onboard a ship the cruise line takes care of all of our flights and the transportation of our equipment to the ship. A semi comes to our house and picks up all 8 of our road cases usually a week before we board the ship, and Kyle and I always feel a little bit nervous seeing our livelihood drive away, but that’s all part of the beauty of this industry. For a show that consists of many large-scale illusions, close up routines using video cameras and projectors, several set pieces and 14 costume changes, we have to start preparing for the show as soon as we arrive at the venue. If possible we do an orientation of the equipment with the stage techs so that they can understand what each illusion is, how to handle it and so on. As soon as possible we set a t time to design the lighting which can take anywhere from 4 hours to 12 hours depending on the ability of the light tech and the theater. We have a significant amount of equipment so late at night after the theater is clear we start setting it up in the wings to give us a head start for the rehearsal. In between shows the props are either stored in the wings or in the orchestra pit, and the other smaller pieces of equipment stay in the cases we have ready access to.
On the day of the show we get up around 9:00 AM (which is pretty early for an entertainer!), have a quick breakfast if we’re lucky, and get to our rehearsal an hour ahead of time so that we can finish setting up our equipment before the rehearsal. I am actively involved in building all of the equipment, which leaves me no room to worry about a manicure. Kyle and I choose to set all of our stage props on our own, mostly because setting the props requires such detail that we have found it is wise to rely on ourselves rather than others. He built most of the illusions himself, and he made it so that the entire show can be built without tools. We give detailed copies of the curtain, video, audio, and stage scripts to each of the techs which on Royal Caribbean, usually consists of a lighting tech, two spotlight operators, two stage technicians, a video tech, a rigging specialist and a stage manager. Each tech has a specific and sometimes crucial job, and learning the show just a few hours before show time is extremely stressful to say the least. Although our show is only 50 minutes, our first rehearsal usually lasts about 4 hours because we have to go through each routine several times for everyone to be comfortable with it. Because we have a larger show and the venue takes care of shipping our equipment, we usually stay at one theater for several months to a year, and that makes it much easier on all of us involved in the show. After the rehearsal we reset all the equipment, make sure all of the dozens of presets are ready to go, which usually takes another hour or so. If there are any repairs to be made to the props Kyle handles it himself because he’s a jack of all trades, but I’m lending a helping hand the entire time. I have 14 costume changes, so I spend another half-hour steaming and presetting my costumes, jewelry and shoes. Most of my costume changes are 30 seconds or less so I have everything set up backstage in an assembly line of sorts. By this time Kyle and I are starving so we grab a light lunch and start getting ready for the show. After showering and drying my hair I usually spend about 45 minutes doing my stage makeup, which is way more than I would ever wear on the street! Showtime is at 7:00 PM and I try to get backstage at least an hour before the show. I double check all my presets, usually finding that something has been moved or needs finishing touches. I spend most of that time before a show stretching every part of my body. Because of the choreography and the illusions, there is no way I could do the show without being flexible. And contrary to popular belief I am NOT a contortionist and I do not need to be one! Lay people are so funny, they always think that’s the answer to everything. I’m dressed in full costume at 15 minutes to show time and in position at 2 minutes till. Right before the curtain opens I pinch Kyle’s butt for good luck – it’s tradition!
“Opening Night” is nerve wracking for everyone involved because mistakes are inevitable, and ironically it’s usually when most of the ship’s staff come to see the show. In the cruise ship industry there aren’t any second chances either. Even though Kyle and I are perfectionists there are so many other people and technical aspects involved, so Murphy’s Law sometimes proves itself live onstage in front of an audience. No matter how many times I perform my heart still races when I hear the opening music. I love performing, and when you’ve got an energetic crowd it’s the best feeling in the world. The hour during the show are somewhat of a blur – between the costumes, the choreography, the illusions, and running on and off stage in the dark – it’s an exhausting workout. During the show backstage is my domain and if anything at all goes wrong it’s my responsibility to fix the problem. Many times I’ve had to make a crucial decision and put it into action, all while Kyle is onstage completely clueless of the chaos going on backstage. Although it scares the hell out of me at the time, I’ve done this enough that I usually make the right decision and the audience is none the wiser of anything unplanned.
By the time we get to the last illusion I’m dripping with sweat and covered in bruises, but when I see the audience give us a standing ovation in a 1000 seat theater it’s all worthwhile. I can relax for now, but not for too long since we have to reset the show and do it all over again for second seating at 9:30 PM. By the we’ve finished the second show and torn down all the equipment it’s 11:00 PM and we are both starving – we missed dinner of course – so we order room service and spend the next couple hours winding down. It’s funny though, we never can get to sleep after a show, Kyle and I are constantly replaying it in our heads. I’m already sore from tonight’s shows and I know I’ll feel it even more tomorrow, but that’s okay because we’re going to be in the Bahamas and I can get a $20 massage on the beach. My work-week is over until next week’s show. I love my job!!!
The Funny Things People Say
Tuesday, September 30th, 2008
We are fortunate enough to have several opportunities to talk with people from our audience after the show, and sometimes we hear some interesting explanations for the illusions that we perform. For one particular close up piece in the show people would say that the coins that Kyle used were tricky in some way, or that the mat he was performing on had slits in it, and that the video footage projected on the large screens was prerecorded. Thanks to the feedback that we got from our audience we were able to make that routine even more powerful. Now each of the coins as well as the mat are handed out into the audience to be inspected, and the video camera pans out across the audience to show them that we have a live, uncut video feed. We’ve heard everything from the coins being holographic images to Kyle having “extra folds of skin” that he hides the coins in, but but ultimately I think that our audience appreciates the fact that it’s just pure sleight of hand.
Over the years we’ve learned that magic becomes real to someone when they have the chance to touch it or see it right in front of their eyes, and that’s why the show has become so audience interactive. Even though we are performing to audiences of more than 1000 people, we want to give everyone there the opportunity to experience the magic personally. Before the show starts we invite the entire audience to come onstage and examine and then sign one of our illusions and within minutes dozens of people of have given it a full examination, and it is covered in signatures. At the end of the show we perform our finale illusion with that same trunk, and the fact that they personally examined it makes it even more impossible. The craziest explanation we’ve heard for this illusion is that “we had an elaborate device backstage that scanned each side of the first trunk, and then reprinted each signature on a second different trunk.” I still laugh when I think about that young man describing this contraption from his imagination!
My favorite routine that we do is our updated version of an old fashioned sawing in half. From the very beginning audience members are involved in this effect, and they have an chance to inspect every element of the routine. We then invite audience members to freely come onstage and watch the illusion from behind, performing it completely surrounded. At times we’ve had more than 30 people onstage, and we STILL have people say that all of them “must be in on it”. One gentleman believed that “it was obvious that Mistie had a double” and that “everyone used in the show was a plant.” Well, I hate to burst your bubble Mr. Johnson, but I think you may have seen “The Prestige” one too many times. Not a single person used in our show is an accomplice to the magic, and I do not have a double…although I sometimes wish that I did because it sure would make my job easier.
The thing that I hear every week is that “I must have a twin,” and for one man the proof of that was because “in some routines my makeup was shinier than others.” One slightly intoxicated guy even said that he knew there were “two Mistie’s” because one had a bigger chest than another one. Well guys, the only secret to that illusion is Victoria’s Secret!
We know that our audience is aware that what we are doing isn’t really happening, that’s why it’s called an illusion, but just as if they were watching a movie, we hope that they will allow themselves to suspend their disbelief and imagine what it would be like if nothing were impossible. Even though people will always share their funny explanations, in end it just makes me proud of the job that we’ve done. If “twins” and “plants” are the only explanations that a person has then we must be doing something right!
Mistie named Miss Las Vegas 2006 & Miss Nevada US 2007
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
A Sante Fe Station Hotel & Casino in January 2006, Mistie Williams was named overall talent winner and ultimately crowned Miss Las Vegas 2006, a preliminary in the Miss America Organization, where contestants are scored in areas of 40% talent, 25% private interview, 15% swimsuit, 15% evening gown and 5% onstage interview. The following year Mistie was crowned Miss Nevada US 2007 and went on to compete at the Miss US pageant held in Las Vegas, Nevada, which was broadcast on national television. Mistie was honored to represent the state of Nevada and be named 2nd runner up and overall swimsuit winner at the Miss US pageant. The biggest honor, however, came when she was voted Miss Congeniality by the 50 contestants from across America!
As Miss Las Vegas 2006 and Miss Nevada US 2007, Mistie was a guest speaker at several local schools and and volunteers with the American Heart Association, We Can! Children’s Nutrition Advocate, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Nevada Action for Healthy Kids, Child Haven, Special Olympics, Adoption Exchange of Nevada, Child Focus and Kids to Kids Literacy Program.
In 2002 Mistie represented her hometown as Miss Pontotoc at the Miss Mississippi pageant, a preliminary to Miss America. The Miss America Organization is the leading scholarship provider for women in the world, and during her years as a titleholder Mistie was awarded more than $10,000 in scholarships. Click on the following links for more information
Video Highlights from Miss Las Vegas & Miss Nevada 2006
Miss Nevada 2006 Contestants, Miss America Organization
Miss Mississippi 2002 Contestants, Miss America Organization
When Things Go Wrong…
Sunday, May 11th, 2008
People always ask us has anything ever gone wrong in a show? The answer is OF COURSE! If you perform hundreds of shows a year, something is bound to happen. Most of the time, however, our audience is never aware that we’ve narrowly avoided a disaster. Kyle has been performing professionally for almost 20 years, and I have only been with him for the last five but I can think of several examples of things going wrong. You can always count on technology to fail, and during some of our routines the camera has failed, his microphone stops without warning, and we’ve been left in complete darkness onstage because the lights have gone out. Just recently a stagehand messed up his very first cue in the show where I was supposed to magically appear onstage. His mistake took away the possibility for my grand entrance, and I was forced to just dance onstage, make up the choreography as I go, killing time until the next cue.
Another example is when a prop was pushed too close to the mid-stage curtain, and as the curtain came up it caught the prop and brought it up in the air with it. The prop fell back to the stage and literally broke in half in front of the audience. That same trouble making illusion has a latch on the bottom of it and at the end of the effect I step out to take my bow. I’m barefooted and wearing fishnets and on another night my fishnets got caught onto the latch, and as I walked downstage I dragged the prop with me until my tights finally ripped free. How graceful!
You name it, it’s happened. We’ve had drunk people wander onstage, costume malfunctions, and Kyle and I both have even had serious injuries during the show but because we didn’t stop, the audience was never aware.
The funniest example that I can think of was when Kyle borrowed a woman’s ring and made it disappear, only to reappear inside of a locked box on the other side of the stage. The lady walked across the stage and attempted to unlock the box, but instead she broke the key in the lock, preventing any of us from getting to her ring. (See, we told you that box is really locked!) She was confused as she went back to her seat empty handed, but with the help of some strong stagehands and a hack saw we got the ring out of the box. We even made it magically reappear later on in the show!
Not all mistakes end so well though, we’ve had an illusion tip over onstage before and show the audience more than they planned on seeing. Fortunately though, Kyle’s a pro and he had the audience laughing at his candor, and we even got a standing ovation. An experienced performer will be able to handle anything that happens onstage, and ultimately the audience will appreciate him or her even more when they see that they can handle themselves under pressure. That’s the beauty of live theater, it’s real, there are no retakes or edits, and the most amazing feat we’ll ever perform is creating the illusion of a perfect show.
Kyle Knight featured in Las Vegas Weekly Magazine
Thursday, April 10th, 2008
Kyle was recently chosen by the editors and readers of Las Vegas Weekly magazine as one the “Most Beautiful People in Las Vegas”. The popular local magazine describes their annual list as “…a look at the city’s most beautiful men and women. Intelligent, sexy and strong, both physically and mentally. These people aren’t just fun to look at, they’re contributors to the local landscape that remind us of Las Vegas’ incredible complexity and excitement. And, of course, they’re easy on the eyes, too.”
