Watch: Magician Fools Today Show Hosts with Broadway Illusion
VIDEO: Antonio Díaz teleports spectators on live television and receive some mind-blown reactions from the audience and hosts.
Antonio Díaz performed a human teleportation illusion this week on The Today Show. We encourage you to watch the performance–where Diaz teleports four randomly chosen audience members across Rockefeller Plaza. If you're burnt out on watching bad magic and need a jolt of joy, Díaz delivers big time. This author was fooled. Badly.
Díaz performed on The Today Show to promote his new Broadway show, El Mago Pop, which will run at the Ethel Barrymore Theater for just 18 performances from August 17th-27th.
His success on The Today Show is no surprise: he's been on quite the roll for the last few years. He's the star of Spain's version of Magic For Humans. Díaz recently bought his own magic theatre in Branson, Missouri, and is the highest-grossing European illusionist in the world. Now, he'll become the youngest illusionist ever to stage their own Broadway show.
Magic isn't new to Broadway. Legends like Penn and Teller, Doug Henning, David Copperfield, and Derren Brown have all graced its stages. Most recently, Brown performed a run of his show Secret, which closed right before the pandemic. But magic isn't always on Broadway, and it's worth noting whenever it is.
El Mago Pop (the name of the show and Díaz's character on stage) is set to be a different experience than Secret, with more similarities to the Copperfield and Henning days. While Brown offered his usual mentalism, Díaz promises a combination of expert sleight of hand and his "most unusual and spectacular illusions." Derren Brown's newest show, which doesn't actually feature Derren, just began previews this week in the UK.
It's fascinating to see magic on Broadway in the modern era because of the prevalence of screens and live cameras. The ability to live-project a video of the magician's hands will allow an audience of 1,000+ at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre to see Díaz's close-up magic and illusions. It will also be interesting to see what Díaz does next. We know he owns a magic theatre in Missouri, and one can assume that he'll parlay his Broadway success into a long-term project in the States.
If you want to see the show, you'll have to get tickets soon, because the 18 performances will disappear within the month. While the run is concise, it will cement Díaz as a sensation in Europe, North America, and the largest possible stage: Broadway.
