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The Villages
Thursday, March 28, 2024

Laughs a plenty at magic show at Colony Cottage Recreation Center

Art Hall with the gong.
Art Hall with the gong.

The 2014 Camp Villages season, which ran from June 4 until Friday, Aug.1, closed with a GONG — not a bang, but a gong — literally, as Santo Domingo resident grandpa, Art Hall, was called into service to hit a gong at appropriate times during the comedic show! Kids of all ages and their grandparents packed the Parlor Theater at Colony Cottage to see the hilarious, interactive, ‘Wonder Works Magic Show’ — which was Camp Villages’ last scheduled activity until 2015.

Entertainer-comedian, Tony Brent, who owns the imaginative Wonder Works attraction Orlando, put on an impressive performance which blended the Gong Show with sleight-of-hand tricks, ventriloquism, music and very funny humor, which kept the audience in stitches. Introducing himself as “Uncle Tony, the eccentric family member,” Tony said “comedy is relative” — and toyed with a large Etch-a-Sketch-type screen. He changed voices as he changed the pictures of characters on that screen — all without moving his lips.

Among Tony’s antics were burning a good hearted, but worried, Grandma’s $100 bill, which mysteriously turned up inside a lemon held by another audience member; taking selfies of himself and participants on stage with his camera phone; and disappearing (and amazingly re-appearing) an egg for young boy

Tony Brent works his magic.
Tony Brent works his magic.

named Evan, who volunteered for the trick. He surprised a visiting granddaughter by swallowing sheets of crumpled tissue paper from ‘Timmy the Toilet Paper Roll,’ which was humanized with coal black eyes — and then removing yards and yards of coiled up paper from his mouth, which the girl walked with and stretched to the back of the theater.

Perhaps the silliest trick involved a volunteer Grandpa from the audience, who, along with Tony, donned a funny wig. Looking like Biblical characters, a scruffy fake-bearded Tony convinced his partner to lie down on a stage mat and trust him to pour water from a glass onto his head. The grandpa was given a tiny ‘cocktail-style umbrella’ to protect himself from the anticipated deluge of water. But, Abra-Cadabra, when Tony turned the glass upside down, kids gasped as the water didn’t spill out.  Hearty laughter rippled through the audience as the two pranced around Nile-style to the music of “Walk Like an Egyptian.”  Tony gave magic show videos as prizes to all his participants on stage, and had other copies for sale.

During the performance, a couple of youngsters yelled out “How’d you do that?” and one small boy asked “Is this over yet?” The Wonder Works Magic Show ended on an upbeat note, and sent the grandparents and kids back into the real world smiling. While Rec Department staffers enjoy their work all year long with Villages residents, they especially look forward to working with visiting grandkids. They will miss Camp Villages, which is now over for this summer. Hang tight, folks — 2015 is just around the corner!

Magician Tony Brent and others join in a "selfie."
Magician Tony Brent and others join in a “selfie.”

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