Today we're going to shine the spotlight on Jim Vines, co-star and co-creator of the Broadway Magic Hour, New York City's #1 family magic show. If you've ever wondered what it takes to develop and travel the world with an award-winning magic act, you are in the right place!
Jim was born in 1966 in Huntsville, Alabama, and his family relocated to the state's capital, Montgomery, when Jim was just 2 years old. Jim's father was building one of the first self-serve gasoline station operations in the country, and Jim's mother was handling the home-front. The family business grew to include auto parts stores, and when Jim was 12 years old, his father started putting Jim and Jim's brother to work in the family business.
One day in 7th grade, Jim's friend Duane casually mentioned that he was learning magic. Jim asked to see a trick. Duane borrowed a quarter, and to Jim's utter life-changing astonishment, with sleeves rolled up and standing in the middle of the cafeteria, Duane closed his fingers around the coin, mumbled an incantation, and then opened his hand wide... the coin was GONE. And Jim was never the same.
Did Duane reveal the secret of the vanishing coin that day? Of course not! Duane was abiding by the Magician's Oath: to never reveal the secret. Jim had to know how it was done!
"I had to learn to do this," Jim says. "It was the most beautiful and impossible thing I had ever seen. The simplicity, The raw audacity of defying the laws of the known universe! The experience had been so powerful I couldn't sleep that night."
The next day Jim got a pass in study hall to go to the library, and the school librarian kindly showed him the section on books about the art of magic. The shelf held a handful of books on the topic -- and fortunately Jim happened to select the one that would further cement magic as a central theme in his life: "The Amateur Magician's Handbook" by Henry Hay.
At the time, Jim didn't know how great this book was; all he saw was the photographs of coins, cards, thimbles, and cigarettes clipped in esoteric positions between the fingers, and something called out to him from those pages that is still transfixed by, 40-something years later.
Learning magic was not easy in the 1980's. There was no internet, no YouTube, no online magic shops. A young magician had to meet older magicians in person, and impress the wiser magi with hard-won skills in order to obtain just another morsel of magic insight. Fortunately for Jim, in Montgomery there was a handful of serious magicians, and Jim bonded with them and together they started Montgomery's first magic club - called the Montgomery Magic Club. In its first year, club got recognized by the International Brotherhood of Magicians as "Ring 256."
By age 18 in 1984, Jim had become proficient at close-up magic, stage manipulation, and had a few grand illusions, and was performing widely throughout the Montgomery and surrounding areas in restaurants, shopping malls, parties, grand opening events, magic conventions and comedy clubs.
Over the next few years, Jim developed a sleight-of-hand stage show featuring the barehand production of 7 live doves, fans of playing cards, cigarettes, full glasses of wine, lit torches, and more. The act won several regional magic competitions and got Jim booked in many comedy clubs even though the act was not a comedy act. Here's a short video clip from that act:
In 1987, while performing in a string of comedy clubs through Alabama, Mississippi, Texas and California, Jim cold-called the world famous Magic Castle in Hollywood, and managed to get Ron White, the Magic Castle's entertainment director, on the phone. Jim told Ron some awards he'd won, and where he was performing, and asked if he could do a short set on the legendary Palace of Mystery stage at the Magic Castle. To Jim's surprise and delight, Ron agreed (without even seeing a video!) and a few nights later one of Jim's dreams came true - Ron gave Jim a 10-minute performing slot between the opening act and the headliner, and Jim performed on that stage.
Jim earned his BA in Theatre Performance at Auburn University with Minors in English and Visual Art, and by the time he was ready to graduate, Jim had decided that he would move to New York City, but he made a crucial decision: He would not immediately pursue magic as a career. During his senior year in college, Jim had become quite interested in the book publishing business and had made some important contacts in that world, so Jim decided to turn his talents towards business and book publishing.
From 1989 until 2006, Jim was a literary agent in New York City. Gone were the doves, the comedy clubs, the card tricks, and illusions. Jim built up his literary agency business, raised a family with his wife Mary, and settled into life as a responsible adult.
During this time, Jim represented many bestselling authors, and sold their books to major US book publishers, into international translations, and film studios, and Jim found this to be very fulfilling and exciting.
Around 2005, Jim founded a direct marketing company specializing in health and beauty products, which he still has a hand in operating to this day.
In 2006, the magic bug bit Jim again. He began developing original close-up magic effects and entering magic competitions. Around this time, Jim's son and daughter were in grade school, and the three of them put together a show. Jim's wife Mary named the show "The Vines Family Magic." It was like the Partridge Family but with magic instead of music. They performed at schools, scout groups, parties, christenings, etc., for a few years, until Jim's kids sat him down one day and said, "This has been fun, dad, but magic is your thing." Jim took the hint, and The Vines Family Magic gave its final performance around 2009.
In 2009, Jim accepted a close-up magic residency at O'Malley's Restaurant in Southold, NY. The Vines family had purchased a vacation home in the East End of Long Island, and since they were out there most weekends, it made sense to have a recurring close-up magic gig in the area.
And in 2014 another pivotal moment happened in Jim's magic life: He attended Jeff McBride's Magic and Mystery School in Las Vegas.
Jim says: "One day at Mystery School, I had a one-on-one conversation with Eugene Burger, and he said, 'Jim, do you believe in magic?' His question caught me completely off-guard. I thought about it for a moment, hesitant to answer. I didn't want to disappoint the deepest magic thinker of the century! Eugene understood everything he needed to know from my silence. He continued, "Jim, we're magicians. If we don't believe in magic, who will?"
When Jim returned to New York from Mystery School, he had a strange and mysterious dream a few nights later... in it, he was performing Robert Houdin's "Aerial Treasury" act (aka, the Miser's Dream), but instead of only coins appearing at his fingertips, in the dream, Jim had coins, banknotes, credit cards, and even a giant gold bar appearing from his empty hands. Jim realized he'd just had an insight as to what his next magic milestone would be.
In September 2014 Jim began developing "The Money Act," what he envisioned an attempt to create the most ambitious version of Houdin's Aerial Treasury ever devised. "My vision was to sit at a table, close-up style, sleeves rolled up, and without ever letting my hands drop below the table edge, proceed to produce a profusion of all kinds of money... ending with the climactic and impossible production of a full-size gold bar."
Nothing like this had been attempted before, and while Jim used several ancient magic methods, many of the techniques were entirely original with Jim, and involved not only new approaches to sleight-of-hand, but also feats of magical engineering using some of the best magic builders in the world.
Jim began entering major magic competitions with the act. "Shin Lim and I were in some competitions together," Jim says. "And his act was just absolute perfection. Whenever Shin was in the contest, I'd get 2nd place." With a laugh, Jim says, "As soon as Shin took off for his Vegas residency at the Mirage, and he was done with magic competitions, I started getting 1st Place everywhere."
To get as much "flight time" as possible with the Money Act, Jim began performing it every week at Magic At Coney in Coney Island. There he met Carl Mercurio, and they became friends and magic collaborators.
Jim's magic competition era peaked in 2017 when he won the title of "North American Champion of Close-Up Magic from the world congress of magic known as FISM. Jim represented North America in the FISM world championship of magic in 2018 in Busan, South Korea.
Major magic conventions around the world booked Jim, and he appeared on television in Italy on a program called "Masters of Magic." Jim was invited to perform the Money Act in a year-long contract at a major casino in Macau, but because Jim did not want to uproot his family from their lives in New York, Jim passed on that opportunity.
In 2018, a few months after Jim returned from FISM in South Korea, a producer from Penn & Teller: Fool Us called Jim and asked him to appear on the show with the Money Act. At the time, Jim felt completely "done" with the Money Act, and was ready to move on to other things in magic, like filling his schedule with more NYC live shows. He really didn't want to spend the necessary time keeping the Money Act in shape for a TV appearance that would be months away. So, Jim thanked the producers but declined.
Over the next few years, Jim performed at many different venues in the tristate area such as Smoke & Mirrors Magic Theater in Philadelphia, The Rose Room in New York City, and private events on the World Yacht Princess.
In 2023, Jim's friend Mary Motto Kalich, President of the North Fork Community Theatre in Mattituck, NY, asked Jim if he'd be willing to do a weekend of fundraiser family-friendly shows for NFCT. Jim agreed, and immediately thought of his friend Carl Mercurio to create a show together, including grand illusions.
Jim and Carl were surprised and thrilled when NFCT announced the shows, and they very quickly sold out. Maybe there was a real need for this kind of show, Jim and Carl realized.
In early 2024, the producers of Penn & Teller: Fool Us contacted Jim again, this time mentioning that Season 10 might be the final season of Fool Us, so if Jim wanted to perform on the show, this might be the last opportunity. Of course, the show went on to do more seasons, and as of 2026 is still running strong, but at that time the future of the show was not known.
Jim brought up the trunk containing the Money Act from his basement, and began rehearsing, to see if he could get it in shape again. It took a week of practice before he could perform the routine at regular speed -- and other two months of work to restore the act to its original polish. One day the producers of Fool Us got on a Zoom video call with Jim and had Jim perform the act live for them, and he nailed the performance. Everyone was glad to have the Money Act officially booked on Penn & Teller: Fool Us!
In a future blog post, we may have Jim tell his entire Fool Us story, but for now, suffice it to say that he gave an amazing performance on the show at the Penn & Teller Theatre at the Rio Casino in Las Vegas; in fact Jim's episode was the highest-rated and most watched episode of Season 10. The video of the show and Jim's performance is available on YouTube and Hulu.
In May 2024, Jim was on a phone call with Richard Brooks, talent booker for the Broadway Comedy Club in Manhattan. Rich said, "I'd really like to book a family-friendly magic show for matinee shows at the club." Jim immediately pitched Rich the family magic show that he and Carl had done at NFCT, and Rich agreed they should try it. "How many tickets do you think it'll sell?" Rich asked. Jim honestly replied, "I have no idea. 10? 25? 75?" They decided to call the show the Broadway Magic Hour, and they scheduled the NYC debut for August 3, 2024 -- and amazingly the show quickly sold out all 180 seats in the venue.
Rich immediately booked 3 more Broadway Magic Hour shows, and those sold out quickly as well. After that, Rich started booking the show for 6 months at a time.
Now the Broadway Magic Hour show is in its 2nd year of weekly performances, and it continues to sell out. Time Out NY, the NY Daily News, NY1 News, Fox 5 News and many more have covered the show very favorably, it has 5-star reviews on TripAdvisor, Yelp, and Google, and the 1-hour stage show continues to draw family audiences from all over the world.
"Carl and I feel like we're just at the beginning with the Broadway Magic Hour," Jim says. "It's a real honor to do a show that's so much fun, and that brings a real sense of wonder and magic to families from everywhere."