Terry Roses' Wonder-Filled Box of Wonders

Terry offers a peek inside the box.

This weekend the much anticipated opening of the Alhambra Theater in West Duluth finally arrived with a vibrant and lively debut featuring magician Terry Roses and his "Box of Wonders." Preceding the Friday evening show, an effusive Bob Boone hosted a special celebration for supporters and contributors, without whom this project would likely never have happened. 

During these weeks before the opening the flurry of activity reminded me of runners making a final kick in a marathon, or race horses galloping down the stretch, hooves pounding and eyes blazing. 

Then suddenly it was here. 

Many of those present at the opening had been here numerous times over the past several years, observing the progress or lending a hand in myriad creative ways. Finally, it was time to take a seat and enjoy this first show of a new era.

THE BOX OF WONDERS

The story, like many tales, begins with a dream. Terry's dream is about a rainbow. We've all heard about the pot of gold that can be found at the rainbow's end, but Terry wondered what might lie at the other end of the rainbow. As it turns out, this is where he discovered the Box of Wonders.

To his great surprise, when he woke from the dream, the Box was sitting there next to his bed. Once he found the Key, he was able to open the box and thereby share the magic he found in the dream.  

Props. The Alhambra, a renovated Vaudeville-era theater, 
added a measure of magical wonderment to the experience.

Ah, how beautiful rainbows can be.

Roses is a master of card wizardly.

One of the tricks performed involved this talking bird (above) 
which predicted what an audience member would roll with a pair of dice.
The bird told us that on the fourth roll Misisipi Mike would role a 12. 

Sure enough, on the Fourth Time Around, he rolled a 12.

Magicians enjoy bringing people up from the audience. This young lady

was asked to select a card without revealing it. Roses spread the cards

on a table, held her wrist and used her own hand to lead him to the card.

Another trick involved a marked coin that would disappear and then 

re-appear inside of what looked like a large ball of string.

Roses showed us "the fastest trick in the world" which involved two 

volunteers selecting cards from a pair of decks which he cocked to

emulate six-shooters. The two chosen cards flew out like bullets. 

Naturally they were the cards we selected.

One of my favorite tricks was a mind-boggler in which two volunteers--

Mary and Frank--were each dealt ten playing cards. They were then 

instructed to re-count and affirm that they each had ten cards.

Terry Roses then said he would remove three cads from Mary's pile 

and transfer them to Frank's. He never touched any of the cards, but

made a "pfffft" type of noise to indicate the sound of cards flitting 

into Frank's pile. When they counted their cards, Mary only had seven 

and Frank had thirteen. This occurred three feet from my eyes. 

Impossible, but it happened. So simple yet so amazing.

Terry showed Misisipi Mike some of the tricks poker cheats use.

Roses used storytelling to knit his disparate parts of his show together.
Part two included scenes about The Quest, Never Enough Time,
the Sands of Time and the Oracle of the Rose. In the end I would say
that everyone present witnessed things they'd never seen before.

Afterwords, much of the audience was welcomed to the stage
for photographs and more.

 

For more:

An Interview with Terry Roses and His Box of Wonders