There is something extraordinary about gathering in a darkened room with a group of strangers.
This October, I had the pleasure of bringing The Last Seance to life at Gold Bug in Pasadena. Inspired by the atmosphere of Victorian séances and our enduring fascination with the unknown, the show was an opportunity to create something a little different: an intimate evening of mystery, mentalism, and human connection.
Over the course of the run, we welcomed 200 guests across 20 séances.
Every single performance sold out.
But as I reflect on the experience, what stays with me most isn't simply the numbers. It's the moments that unfolded inside that little room, the people who shared them, and the feeling that, for a brief time, we had created something truly special together.
Creating a World of Mystery
As a Mentalist, I'm fascinated by the things that connect us: our thoughts, our memories, our intuition, and the remarkable ways our minds work. My performances have always been about more than demonstrating the seemingly impossible. At their best, they create moments that feel personal, surprising, and impossible to explain.
With The Last Seance, I wanted to explore those ideas through a different lens.
The Séance has a rich theatrical history. It evokes candlelight, whispered questions, mysterious happenings, and the possibility that there might be more to the world than we can readily understand. There is a reason these gatherings have captured the imagination for generations. They invite us to step away from the familiar and entertain the possibility of something extraordinary.
I wanted to capture that feeling while creating an experience that was intimate and immersive.
The result was a gathering unlike a traditional theater performance. The room was small, the atmosphere was deliberate, and the audience wasn't simply there to watch. Everyone became part of the experience.
And that, I think, is where the real magic began.
Twenty Séances. Two Hundred Guests. Every Show Sold Out.
Over the course of the run, twenty performances brought two hundred guests into the world of The Last Seance. Every show sold out, and I couldn't be more grateful to everyone who reserved a seat, spread the word, and joined us for a spooky evening at Gold Bug.
Performing twenty shows within the same intimate setting was a wonderful reminder of one of my favorite things about live entertainment: no two performances are ever truly the same.
The structure might remain familiar, but the people change everything.
Every gathering brings its own personality, its own energy, and its own unexpected moments. A thought shared by one guest can lead somewhere entirely different from a thought shared by another. A moment of disbelief can turn into laughter. A seemingly impossible revelation can leave an entire room in stunned silence.
You can prepare the conditions for an experience, but you cannot entirely predict what will happen once people come together.
That unpredictability is one of the great joys of performing. It is also what makes live theatre so special. Each evening exists only once, belonging to the people who were there to share it.
Twenty performances gave us twenty opportunities to create something unique. And I feel incredibly fortunate that so many people chose to be part of it.
Beyond the Mystery: The Power of Connection
A show built around a séance naturally invites questions about the unknown. What can we know? What can we trust? Is there more happening beneath the surface of our everyday experiences than we realize?
Those questions are part of the fun.
But beneath the mystery, I believe there is something even more interesting: the connections we make with one another.
There is something special about watching a group of strangers become part of a shared experience. People arrive with different lives, different stories, and different reasons for being there. But once the show begins, those differences become secondary to the moment unfolding in front of them.
We laugh together. We hold our breath together. We wonder together.
And sometimes, in the middle of all the mystery, something unexpectedly personal happens.
Perhaps it's a memory that feels more significant when spoken aloud. Perhaps it's the surprise of discovering something about ourselves or another person. Or perhaps it's simply the feeling of being fully present, sharing a moment with the people around us without thinking about what comes next.
These moments remind me why I love performing.
The most meaningful part of Mentalism isn't necessarily the impossible thing that happens. It's what happens between people when they experience it together.
For a brief time, the outside world falls away. There are no emails to answer, no errands to run, and no distractions demanding our attention. There is only the room, the people in it, and the mystery unfolding between us.
In a world that so often encourages us to look down at our screens and move quickly from one thing to the next, there is something profound about simply being present.
If The Last Seance offered even a small opportunity for that kind of connection, then it accomplished something far more meaningful.
A Celebration of the Season
October has always felt like a natural home for mystery.
As the days grow shorter and Halloween approaches, we give ourselves permission to embrace the unusual. We tell ghost stories, light candles, visit haunted places, and entertain ideas that might seem a little out of place at any other time of year.
There is a wonderful sense of possibility in that tradition.
For a few weeks, the ordinary world seems to make room for the extraordinary. We celebrate the strange, the unexplained, and the things that leave us wondering.
The Last Seance was my way of embracing that spirit and creating a gathering around it.
I wanted the experience to feel like stepping into another time, somewhere between theatrical history and the imagination. Looking back, I think the most beautiful part of the experience was the way the atmosphere brought people together. The setting gave us a world to enter, but the guests gave that world its life.
It was a celebration of the season, certainly. But it was also a celebration of curiosity, imagination, and our shared desire to experience something beyond the ordinary.
Thank You for Being Part of the Experience
Creating a show like The Last Seance begins long before the first guest arrives.
There are ideas to develop, details to consider, an atmosphere to build, and countless little decisions that eventually come together to create an experience. You spend time imagining what something might become, hoping that when the doors finally open, other people will connect with the world you've created.
But a performance doesn't truly come alive until the audience arrives.
To everyone who attended one of the twenty séances, thank you.
Thank you for filling every performance, for bringing your curiosity and enthusiasm into the room, and for being willing to step into the unknown with me. Thank you to those who shared the experience with friends, recommended the show to others, and helped make this run such a success.
Welcoming two hundred guests into this little world of mystery was a privilege, and I'm deeply grateful to everyone who made it possible.
I'm also grateful to Gold Bug for providing such a wonderful setting for an experience like this. The intimacy and character of the space made it a fitting home for The Last Seance.
As performers, we hope that what we create will resonate with the people who experience it. To see so many people embrace this project and make it part of their October is something I won't soon forget.
The End Is Only the Beginning
And now, the candles have burned down, the room has grown quiet, and The Last Seance has become a memory.
There is something bittersweet about bringing a project like this to a close. You spend so much time building an experience, only to watch it unfold and eventually disappear. The room returns to its usual state. The guests go home. The final evening becomes part of the past.
But perhaps that is what makes live performance so special.
We cannot hold on to the moment itself. We can only carry forward what it gave us: the laughter, the astonishment, the unexpected connections, and the feeling of having been part of something that existed only for that particular gathering of people.
Not everything needs to last forever to matter.
Sometimes, the most meaningful experiences are the ones we know we cannot recreate exactly. Their beauty lies in the fact that we were there, that we shared them with others, and that for a little while, we allowed ourselves to cross over.
That is what I will remember about The Last Seance.
Thank you to the two hundred guests who joined me this October. It was a pleasure to share these evenings with you, and an honor to bring this little world of mystery to life.
Until our paths cross again, be well and thank you for being here.
The end is only the beginning…
