Creating Magic Ep. 4 : Tom Dobrowolski

Today we've got the one and only Tom Dobrowolski, who has been collaborating with Bigblindmedia for over 8 years and has put out effects such as THE BIG FOUR, FIRST FIND A LAYMAN or STOP ME. Tom and us have been secretely working on a new card magic project and we're very excited to reveal it to you in the following weeks!

With this occasion, we decided to sit down with Tom and discuss about magic for more than an hour. During our interview with him we discovered Tom first creates routines in his mind before practicing them in reality, we learned how he started performing magic professionally after a school assignment and many more curiosities and wisdom from his life-long journey in magic. The episode will air next week on YouTube, during which Tom will also teach you a magic trick. 

In this blog post, we decided to pass the baton to Tom and let him talk a bit about magic and himself. 

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I’m best described as a Magic Performer, Lecturer, Demonstrator, Lifelong Student of the Art and Chicago Guy. I have been studying and performing magic for over 50 years.

I started when I was about 10 years old when I had a substitute schoolteacher perform and teach us a couple of magic tricks. I’ve been hooked ever since.

I first started performing magic shows for the public when I was 17 years old. Magic shops also played a huge role in my magic development. There were several in the Chicago area when I was growing up so I was exposed early on to great magic and was fortunate to have mentors like Jim Ryan, Jay Marshall, Billy Bishop and Tommy Edwards. Having had that experience it’s become a mission of mine to “pass it on” providing that same mentorship and guidance I received early on that was so helpful in my development. 

My many years of experience include performances as diverse as cruise ships and Hawaiian resorts, birthday parties and illusion shows, walk around close up and TV appearances. Studying and performing these diverse styles of magic is the best way to improve your magic overall. It also opens so many opportunities you may never have if you “specialize”. I highly recommend it particularly when first learning magic.

Over the years I’ve released a handful of products to the magic community such as “Big Four Poker” and “In The Hands Wild Card” DVD’s and “OiATER” (oil and water) manuscript all which have become best sellers and recognized as standards in the world of magic. I’ve done 2 Penguin Live lectures the most recent in 2022 features classic Chicago Style Magic, the magic of his dear friend and mentor James Patrick Ryan, “The Darling of the Geritol Set”.

Over the last 12 years I’ve published a series of highly acclaimed contributor driven lectures/lecture notes. That morphed into publishing (with several of his magician friends) a monthly magic journal “The Disclaimer” a digital magazine. Tricks only. No advertisements. Basically, it is like reading a chapter from a good magic book.

My goal in everything I release to the magic community is to provide strong fun magic that you will learn and perform. Here is an excerpt from a set of my lecture notes that sums up my theory of magic.

The Real Theory 11: Magic Theory Summarized in 11 Words

After many years of being blessed to know and to have spent time with some really talented magicians past and present I came to the realization that “magic theory” can be summarized in one 11 word sentence.

“Be an interesting person who enjoys doing some cool fun stuff.”

That's it. Really.

Ok I'll break it down.

“Be an interesting person...” - Interesting to “real” people not just magicians. Be well rounded, well spoken and well informed. If you're not why would you think anyone should watch what you're doing or listen to what you have to say??

“...who enjoys...” - If you don't enjoy performing you shouldn't. You're not
fooling anyone but yourself. Similar to the above if you're not having fun why would you expect anyone watching you to have fun??

“...doing some cool fun stuff.” - Choose good and entertaining (to “real” people) magic and do it well. Listen to your audiences and learn. Think about the best magic performers both well known and less well known that you've seen and enjoyed, they all fit this criteria.

It’s really THAT simple!

Tom Dobrowolski's interview drops next week on the 2nd of June.