Yay,

I had a pirate-princess party for my daughter last Sunday, it ended up being incredibly fun.
Both of my daughters are still young enough to think it's cool to have me do a show at their parties. I love that, but it means that they have both seen my birthday party show (or at least the varying components) probably close to a dozen times now. They don't mind, but I don't want to bore the other kids and adults, not to mention that I don't do anything pirate/princess related.

Enter Kismet (from "Magictales" by Leslie melville)!

I had used the kismet principle once before, in a Harry Potter themed show. Like the rest of that show, it was fine, but nothing spectacular (I'm sure the fault was with me, btw, not the routine), but I knew there was a pirate themed application of the principle so I looked it up and it was a total hit. I think that my recent focus on performing mentalism, especially equivoque, helped a lot in this presentation, but the routining itself is beautiful.

I feel like I learned not only an amazing routine (that may well become a part of my birthday shows) but a lot about storytelling magic. The Kismet/Tortuga routine has you tell a short, but good, story to start off with and follow it by the routine wherein the child enacts the adventure they had just heard. It was a great combination!

Has anyone else used, or been using, this?

Huh,
....well everyone who doesn't have it already should go out and get it right away.

I'd be interested to hear a little more about the routine, Courtney.

So would I. It sounds like a good interlude, or a way to "start act 2 " of your show.

I'll describe a bit, it's the kind of routine that it would be easy to give away to much.

The Kismet principle is a version of Equivoque/magican's choice, but adapted with some very good subtleties to make it into an interactive stage piece. The principle is very adaptable and several versions of the routine are given, each with a different theme.

The pirate adventure involves the telling a fun, short pirate story, followed by the recreation of the story (with pirate maps and everything), ending up with the chosen child choosing a bag of (chocolate!) gold coins, among a bunch of trash.
There are plenty of fun bits of business as well.

Check it out here:
http://leapinglizardsmagic.com/aaa_newsi......ales.htm