I’d been thinking about creating a magic show featuring talented female magicians for several years. The early working title was SLOM (Sexy Ladies of Magic), which I came up with as a joke during a speech at the launch of Ski Lodge. It got a laugh from the crowd but was rejected by the marketing department.
The idea came up in 2019 while I was in Edinburgh working on the new production of Atomic Saloon Show. While I was there, I went to see Natalie Palamides’ show LAID, which won her Best Newcomer at Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Natalie is a comedian-clown, writer, and director from Los Angeles whom I had seen several times at the Fringe. Her show Nate – A One Man Show, won the 2018 Total Theatre Award: Innovation, Experimentation and Playing with Form at the Fringe and was later produced by Amy Poehler’s production company for release on Netflix, and her latest production, WEER, is the first show to launch Cherry Lane Theatre, A24’s new theatrical space in New York, in September.
Last year, I invited Natalie and a few Spiegelworld creatives to Nipton, our retreat in the Mojave Desert, for a writing workshop. It’s an inspiring place to unclutter the mind. From that material, we assembled a cast of ten performers this April to spend a week with Natalie in New York, working up improvised scenes. She stitched them into a semi-staged presentation for a small audience of friends, and these early sketches offered a first glimpse of Lady Magic.
Back in 2019, we created Atomic Saloon Show away from the pressures of Vegas, bringing the cast and crew to Edinburgh for four weeks. The Fringe audience tells you quickly whether a show is any good. We’d tested Vegas Nocturne II similarly in 2015 (I loved it but no one bought a ticket). Now, in 2025, Natalie and an incredible cast are heading to Edinburgh for a month-long season at the Pleasance Dome.
Lady Magic will still be a work in progress. Unlike Atomic Saloon Show, which already had a venue at The Venetian, there are no confirmed plans for the show after Edinburgh. Maybe this will be our first show in Macau or the Middle East?
As Natalie puts it—we’ll be flying by the seat of our pants. There will be changes. We’ll respond to the audience. We’ll take risks. Make cuts. This will be a real goat rodeo.
Ross Mollison
Impresario Extraordinaire, Spiegelworld