PENN & TELLER Talk Bringing Magic Back to Broadway: 'There's Still Discovery Possible'

In a new interview in today's New York Times, Penn and Teller chat about returning to New York for PENN AND TELLER ON BROADWAY. The show's six-week run begins at the Marquis Theater on July 7th.

"For 15 years, we've been talking about getting another New York run going," explains Penn Jillette. "Penn and Teller, as we are now, really started in New York when they brought us out in 1985," adds Teller, "That was before Disney bought Times Square."

Speaking from a production office near New York's theater district, Teller references a poster from the duo's 1985 Off Broadway show, which ran at the Westside Arts Theater. The promo, which quotes Rolling Stone, reads, "The hippest, strangest, funniest act New York will ever see!"

"Notice something about that poster," points out the 67-year-old magician. "The complete absence of the word 'magic.' When we first came to New York, because what people thought of as magic was Harry Blackstone, David Copperfield and Doug Henning," the producer Richard Frankel "wanted to somehow differentiate us from all of it."

Jilette discussed one of the acts most frequently requested tricks, known as "Needles", in which Teller eats a handful of sewing needles and some thread, and then proceeds to pull the thread back out of his mouth, only the needles are now neatly threaded. "I really like the fact that Teller is going to do Needles in our show here," says Jillette, adding that it was "the first trick I saw him do." before they were a team. "Still doing it 40 years later, and I think still getting better at it."

Agrees Teller, "There's still discovery possible."

Read the story in full here

Thirty years after their New York premiere and 40 years after they first started as a team, Penn & Teller On Broadway will be a rare opportunity for New Yorkers and tourists to see the popular duo; they will immediately return to their record-breaking Las Vegas run at The Rio at the end of the Broadway engagement. The Broadway engagement will include both elements of their Las Vegas show and classics from their repertoire. They were recently voted the 2015 Best Magicians for the eighth time in the Las Vegas Review-Journal's "Best of Las Vegas" poll.

Penn & Teller made their stunning off-Broadway debut in 1985 and first played Broadway in 1987. Following a national tour, they returned to Broadway in 1991 with The Refrigerator Tour which then moved off-Broadway. Their last New York stage appearance was a week-long engagement at the Beacon Theatre in 2000. Their numerous honors include an Obie Award, an Emmy, and a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The New York Times has called them "a matchless team of self-mocking sorcerers" and called their show "an iconoclastic assault on the temple of magic." WNEW-TV said "If there's any justice they should rot in hell. Until then, see them."

Penn & Teller On Broadway is produced by Marc Routh, Richard Frankel, Tom Viertel and Steve Baruch, the same team that produced their New York stage debut, and each of their subsequent Broadway and off-Broadway engagements, Penn & Teller; Penn & Teller: The Refrigerator Tour; and Penn & Teller Rot in Hell.

Photo courtesy of Penn & Teller official web site